Shrink Wrap
by jennii.b
Summary: Xavier recruits a psychologist to help his budding mutants adapt and adjust in the larger world. She doesn't want to be there. He wants her to open up to him. And then there's Sabretooth to throw a wrench in the works...
1. Chapter 1

**Some things to consider before you start the story…**

…I gave X a doctorate. It seemed appropriate. So sometimes you'll see him addressed or identified as "Prof. Xavier" and sometimes it's "Dr. Xavier" instead. Sue me.

…I have a deep and abiding love for these characters that fueled some spark in my imagination. I'm not a huge comic guru & only went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine as transportation for youth who weren't old enough to drive when they came out. Life altering!

…I've never honestly made it all the way through any of the rest of the X-Men movies. Again, love the characters, love the concepts. I say this as a warning: the idea of the Mansion sunk into my brain and it may not be an accurate (movie cannon) portrayal. Use your imagination and judge not harshly.

…My eldest grandson's name is Vincent. Somewhere in my brain Victor & Vincent became the same person, so if you catch one of those sing out! (It'll also help if you say, "Oh, gee, in Chapter 5 you called the poor man the wrong name again," as you go so I can find the mistake fairly easily.)

…You'll see some elvish influence. Of course I had to pay homage to Legolas. See if you catch it!

… If Tolkein's elves are the only ones with which you're familiar, broaden your horizon! There's rich and varied source material out there! The other credit for Jaran's character truly goes to Thorarinn Gunnarsson. Some girls wanted to be Cinderella and Snow White. I wanted to be Dalvenjah.

…The character Loden's story is told in my Logan-centric tale _RENEWALS_. She's a whole 'nuther kind of elf. Both of these work just fine as stand-alones, but you'll have the added insight if you do read it. That one's not a romance. It's a tale of friendship and healing instead.

…The Gaelic/Elvish origins (you'll know it when you get there) are pure fiction. Don't spend a whole lot of time researching that. (One of mine decided it would make a neat term paper. Still not sure if she's aware of the difference between fact and fiction. Still not sure I want to enlighten her!)

**I do hope you enjoy…**


	2. Chapter 2

"Does somebody want to tell me what I'm doing here?"

The woman was incensed. She was headed for straight up pissed. And, although years of working around covert ops had prepared her to deal with reticence, she was tired of getting non-answers from the men to either side of and behind her.

"Doctor...so glad you could come see us."

"Shove it. I'm six hours away from being AWOL and on a different continent than my duty station. What the hell is going on?"

Professor Charles Xavier nodded to the others in the room and they eased back. Jaran took in the presence of other individuals at a seating arrangement in the far side of the room. Altogether there were probably twenty people in the room. A lot of them with hungry, haunted eyes.

"We have need of your professional prowess, I believe."

"Enlist and sign up for some high-stakes stuff. Or call and make an appointment. This is bullshit."

"Your patients are being seen to."

"My patients are special cases. They won't transfer their trust immediately. Especially if they think they've been betrayed or abandoned-"

"Your patients understand that missions come down with little warning sometimes. They'll be told you were transferred to a facility with higher priorities-and that your file now has a higher security classification will satisfy them that what you are doing is worthwhile."

She crossed her arms and leaned her hip against a chair. "You seem to know a good deal about what I do and who I treat."

"You are purported to be the very best at what you do. And we find ourselves in need of your services."

"So are the soldiers and sailors I treat every day."

Xavier pressed his lips together. When he would try to speak inside her he found himself singularly shut out. He sighed, this attempt failing as well. "I think you'll find the skill set here somewhat...different. _Special_."

She arched a brow. Her eyes were cold. Yet heat flickered in them. He knew her reputation for being no-holds-barred and aligned that with the fact that everyone who knew her found her humorous. He didn't. Not yet, anyway.

"But you don't see the fact that some of these men are recuperating from missions that most mere mortals wouldn't even attempt to be as important. The skill sets required to propel themselves through the water faster than SEALS, make decisions faster than a cat, and be more ferocious than any predator on earth doesn't allow them the same privileges you require for your team?"

"Lady, this mission is approved by NATO and your own president. Shove it."

"Prove it."

Xavier gestured. A young man with red-tinted sunglasses crossed the room, opening a drawer in a file cabinet and dropping that file on the desk.

"I have your file. Your complete file. It's the official version, not a clandestine replication, with all the stamps and marks as they should be, and it was brought here under armed guard. Curious?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "I know what's in it. I've lived it."

"Have you read what others think of you? Do you know why the president himself has never awarded you any of the awards normally given by his own, personal hands."

She lifted a lip. "I have my pet hunches. When do my orders come down?"

Xavier opened the file, flipped to a section near the back, and slid it toward her. Jaran had to approach to see it.

They seemed intact. The fact that the orders were dated the previous week and that she'd seen nor heard anything of them bothered her a little. The fact that she was TDY until further notice to "Special Group: Phantom" under a Dr. Charles Francis Xavier bothered her greatly. No unit designations, no op reports.

"Great," she muttered. "When do I begin?" Casually she reached for the personnel file.

Xavier reached for her wrist, hoping a physical connection would aide him in reaching into her. Jaran just wrinkled her nose and smiled at him.

"What are you looking for, Doctor?" she asked.

"What is inside you?"

"Ask. Don't intrude. Didn't your mother raise you better?"

There was shifting in the back of the room. Jaran felt a presence that called to her and turned.

"_Ahhh_," the professor hummed. "It is true."

Jaran shook her head. "Doctor, if you live long enough you're going to find that in everything there is some truth. And in everything there is some lie."

"Found that out for yourself?"

James Logan walked forward, extending his hand. "Welcome, Doctor. I hope you're comfortable here."  
"Which, oddly enough, is a line from a movie. Followed immediately by cold cackling and, 'You'll be staying.'"

Logan smiled.

"Some of our _operatives_ are having a hard time settling after missions." Xavier was hoping to intrigue her out of her hostility.

"Recurrent nightmares, sweats, shakes, that kind of thing?"

Logan nodded. "And there are some who are not yet secure in their..._gifts_."

She snickered at him. "I hate that word. Say abilities. A gift you can return or exchange. Increased aptitude, overzealous senses, hyper-aware faculties, these aren't things you can send back. They're more along the lines of a responsibility."

"So you understand us?" Xavier asked.

"I understand a certain aspect of a human being who is also more than what is considered to be norm."

"You are especially successful with those warriors who are termed savage, correct?" he insisted.

Jaran narrowed her eyes. "I don't use that term. We're all animals, Doctor. It's what we were before we stepped out of the cave. You can put on shoes and boots and carry around a three-hundred dollar bag, but underneath it is the living flesh and bone and muscle that can respond to the instinctive traits all but trained out of us. It is a rare human being who is able to answer that call and still fit in with society's norms without some venue for expression. I am that venue for many of our country's elite fighting men and women."

"Your code name is Animal Magnetism," he told her.

She shrugged.

"Your new assignment is to help the next generation of the _world's_ most elite defenders to adjust to the weight of their talents." When Jaran didn't respond he continued. "Some of their talents run more to the mineral or elemental. Will you be able to deal with them as well?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Are you as comfortable evaluating and counseling someone with, say, diamond-like qualities or an adaptation for fire or water as you are someone whose inner self more greatly resembles a predatory beast?"

Jaran shrugged. "I've earned my degrees. I have my orders. I don't have to like them to give it my all. That's what serving is all about."

"You will stop blocking me, then?"

"_Hell, no_. What's in my head is for me alone. You can keep yours out of it."

"So you did recognize my efforts..."

She arched a brow at the older man. "I'm trying very hard not to pitch a fit. I don't know who you are or what you do here. I'm supposed to be of service to you people. I'm not a lab rat. And I'll be damned if you'll treat my patients like lab rats. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, Doctor. Now, if you'll permit me to have you shown around? Your office is prepared. Case files are in the cabinet awaiting your perusal. Any changes you'd like to see made, anything that would make you more comfortable, just give me the word."

She was obviously dismissed. And she would obviously be the topic of conversation in the room after she left. But there was damned little she could do about that.


	3. Chapter 3

"Why is it that my professional reputation was such that you would remove me from my current assignment-to the detriment of my patients-and yet you won't take my recommendations at face value?"

"Your services are appreciated-"

The door opened and Victor Creed walked in. Stalked might have been a better term. He slammed the door hard, then sidled along the wall for a few feet before sauntering closer. He cocked his head at the man behind the desk, at the woman facing off against him on the other side.

"Am I interrupting a meeting or something?" he asked casually, his nails scratching long scars into the top of the low bookcase he passed.

Jaran rolled her eyes. She knew him. Knew his type, certainly. He was every badass special ops boy she'd ever run into. She knew him specifically, though.

Victor hesitated as he catalogued her features. Something in him recognized her. Jaran was very aware of the instant it happened...just as she was aware of the instant he wrote it off as impossible, as a fluke or vague resemblance. She understood that, as well. When you'd lived as long as they had you were bound to run up against any number of people who were the spitting image of other people. Or enough so to give you the creeps. The law of large numbers said that if there were a certain number of people in the world it was bound to happen. And genetics taught that there are only so many thousands of combinations for chromosomes to line up in. Eventually the pattern would evolve.

Still, it pleased her on some wholly non-academic level that he had, for those brief seconds, recognized her.

"We're arguing benefits for your continued service to the group."

"The good doctor wants vacation days," Xavier sighed.

Victor shrugged. "So give 'em to 'er."

"For you," the pair on either side of the desk corrected.

"I don't need a vacation. What the hell am I supposed to do in my free time as it is?"

"Take up knitting, play golf, go get a couple of tattoos. I don't care-"

"I'm fine. I like a steady mission tempo. I like training when I'm not working. I'm not like everybody else."

Jaran shrugged. "I wasn't just talking about you. I was talking about all of us. Just a chance to get out of these four walls and see something different if you want to. Sacred time. For whatever cleansing rituals you prefer. R & R." She turned back to Xavier. "I have worked with and observed military operations for a long, _long_ time. This is what you brought me in to do. If you want me to take care of your team you need to let me take care of your team."

"Hmph." Both of the doctors turned to Victor. He was gently working a deep groove into an antique sideboard.

"You need to quit that. That wood never did anything to you and you're just being malevolently destructive. We all know you have claws. You're a big boy; you can show a little restraint. Now be a good kitty and go find a scratching post if you need one."

Victor bowed up. "Lady-"

She just turned to face him, her arms crossed across her chest, head and hip cocked. One eyebrow slowly rose in derision.

Victor felt his anger turn to amusement. His claws, which had extended without his full knowledge, retracted a bit as his heartrate calmed. He let his head fall back as he laughed, then he turned to the professor. "You've got your hands full here, boss. I think you're going to lose."

"My gift is less visceral, less primitive than yours. She has less power over me."

Jaran shrugged. "Victor isn't primitive. And because your gift comes from some extra-sensory device in your brain doesn't make it any more sophisticated than one that is part of a physical adaptation."

"And yet the fact remains..."

"Okay. Well, boss, I'll come back once you two have talked each other down. Ma'am," he ducked his head before striding across the room.

Jaran watched him go. When she turned back Xavier was frowning.

"You'll never get in. He's too crowded; I won't let you."

"How did you get his file?"

"I'm sorry?"

"His file isn't one that was made available to you. He's not one you're going to be able to save."

"Nobody needs to save him. He's been that way since before he was deemed 'damaged', so don't worry your pretty little head about that."

"Others have told you his story?"

"Victor's story?" She seemed surprised. Xavier held out his arms in exasperation. "We've met before. Briefly. It may or may not come to him. He's got a lot of years of chance meetings under his belt to cull through."

"But you remembered?"

Not her eyebrows showed her derision. "He has the potential to be one of the world's more memorable people."

-_...-…_-_..._-

"I'm only here because I have to be," Creed warned her as he entered her private lair.

"Well that makes two of us," she reminded him.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"You don't even want to pretend to be all sympathetic and stuff?"

She scoffed and shook her head. While he wandered the room he kept an eye on her. Eventually she sighed and shuffled her papers back into the manila file folder on her desk. Shaking her head she dropped in into the bottom drawer, then slammed it shut.

"You don't want to talk?" she asked, her brows lifted.

He snorted. "Do I seem like the chatty type?"

One of those shoulders lifted, then dropped. She moved closer to him, sliding apart the doors of the entertainment system to swirl the dials and buttons it concealed until the rhythm of drums and pipes filled the room.

"I hate being here," she confessed. "I just hate it here."

"Don't hold back on my account," he murmured. Inwardly he wondered what the hell was going on. She wasn't like anyone or any_thing_ he'd ever encountered before. But somewhere inside he knew he knew her. Her next words stunned his inner voice into complete silence.

"Dance with me?" she begged, her hands moving sinuously. He couldn't take his eyes off her. He'd never been one to _feel_ music. She did, apparently. And it looked good on her. Her hips and that long, lean body swayed and rocked and dipped and made his mouth water. "Dance with me!"

Victor shook his head. "That is one skill set I do not have," he claimed.

Jaran ground her teeth thoughtfully, then stepped back to the CD player. Something slower, more primal came slinking out of her speakers.

She turned, holding out her hand. "Come here. It's not really dancing. It's just-a little bit of swaying."

He scoffed, but he got to his feet. Jaran met him halfway. She took his hands, wrapping them where she wanted them. He felt her body moving gently side to side, felt her heartbeat melding with the baseline.

"Like this?" he asked, tucking his hips along hers, mirroring her movements.

"Mmm..._exactly_ like this," she purred, her cheek nuzzled next to his. Norah Jones swept them away, her deep, sultry tones perfect for his first lesson.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'd like to work with you," Jaran told Victor when he emerged at the side of the pool. He'd just done three legs of the Olympic-length pool without coming up for air.

"What service do you think you could offer on my missions?" he panted sarcastically.

She reached out to shove him away from the wall. He let her as it wasn't going to hurt him any and he was actually curious to see where this was going.

"I meant _my_ work. Not yours."

Victor treaded water a few feet out. "I never have quite figured out what it is you do here."

"I'm your very own guidance counselor, Victor Creed. Propping up the weary world defenders, listening to their qualms about missions, reassuring them about their adaptations and their ability to lead normal lives in spite of them."

Victor yawned hugely, his hand slow in coming up to cover his mouth. "Sorry." He looked straight at her and reached for the ledge, hauling himself partially out of the water. "I don't need the handholding. I'm secure in what I am, what I do."

Jaran stood, stepping back so that he could rise fully. He did so-not so much lightly as with great grace. His body was muscled from top to bottom. And tanned evenly, she noted thanks to the narrow band of the black briefs at his hips.

"I think there's untapped potential there."

"Tell me where I know you," Victor ordered instead of answering. He stepped forward to claim a towel, briskly rubbing his body down.

"You've decided that you know me?"

"Yes. And I've got it narrowed down to a couple of possibilities. So you're going to explain to me what the hell you're doing here and you're going to tell me if you've been watching me and you're going to-"

Jaran laughed. "Georgia. Chickamauga. 1863. I miss those uniforms. They were stunning on you. Then again in _Grandvilliers_. 1944. although you might not remember that. You were helping to offload a truck full of wounded men and were somewhat preoccupied."

"Does Xavier know?"

"That I'm immortal? Yeah. So does the government. Our government."

"Are you keeping tabs on me?"

She shook her head. "Just luck of the draw. I guess they figured someone ageless would have the perspective to make you all comfortable with the adaptations of your bodies."

"You used to do real doctoring. You were helping with the cutting and the sewing when we met. Up to your goddamned shoulders in it."

She swallowed hard and nodded. The gusto seemed to go out of her as she found a seat atop a bright yellow trunk full of gear. "I did. I still can-I'm board certified and keep up with the requirements for all of my degrees. I changed my specialty when the jungle wars started looming and I was faced with that eventuality. It was a nightmare and nobody over there had any answers. Nobody over here understood."

"You were afraid," he said softly. He reached into the drink cooler beside the towel rack and brought out a bottle of water. He sat beside her and offered the cold drink.

She nodded and accepted the bottle. Her long swig gave him time to watch the smooth column of her throat, the tightness in her cheeks.

"Your hair was different then. Red and gold and light brown."

She nodded. "The world's shrunk-with television and the internet and i.d. cards, it's a smaller place. Hair like mine is hard to forget. Makes it harder to blend in. I haven't worn it naturally in decades."

"If you're immortal why were you afraid of the cannons?"

She remembered. They were all so close to the surface. It had been his first war. It wasn't hers. And, while elvish steel cut more cleanly than the rough-hewn cannons and lead balls of the civil war-era army, she was no stranger to the aftermaths of a battle. But she had been afraid. She'd been one of few, with many to treat. And they were being treated right out in the open-with men holding their buddies down so that the doctors could cut off or sew up mangled limbs. Victor took the bottle when her hand trembled and threatened to crush it.

"People call you monsters," she whispered now. "Regular, _normal_ mortals. They only have one life to live and they cause as much mayhem and destruction as they can during it. But _you're_ the freaks. Even the mortals who have been called to save the earth are regarded with suspicion and become fodder for jokes and comic sketches."

"But you weren't going to die. Why did you shrink back when the cannons started falling again?" he persisted. He'd been one of those men, holding down the injured so that she could set a badly busted leg. Jaran had argued with the doctor against sawing off the damaged lower portion. She'd thought it could be saved. She was right. But, even as she'd begun the process of splinting it and wrapping it-with the young man screaming and thrashing since there were no drugs available-the balls had started pounding the earth again. Gunfire erupted around them as the wounded and those tending them fought back. Every volley had caused her to flinch.

"It's a natural weakness," she confessed. "I didn't want to die there. I want to die in some quiet, grassy place with tree limbs overhead and birds singing."

"You just admitted to being immortal."

"Ageless. Not impervious. I won't die of natural causes-there is no such thing as old age to the elder race-but I can be killed."

"_Oh, Jesus._ What the hell were you doing in the middle of a battlefield then?"

Jaran laughed. "What I could. My people don't fault women for being women. But the world evolved and suddenly we became second-class citizens. Pretty little things to set aside and forget until you wanted one under you or in the kitchen preparing your meals. I was raised to be as effective with a bow or broadsword as my brothers." She held out her hands. "Now my government-a government whose expansions made it impossible for us to simply melt away in the shadows-says that I'm not qualified to raise arms in its defense."

"So you learned to heal."

"I've always been taught healing. I learned your medicines and techniques so that I could blend in."

"Have you ever been on the warring side of a battle?" he asked, tossing back the rest of the water.

She nodded. "A couple."

"And you weren't afraid then?"

"I could fight back then. As soon as those cannons boomed you were instantly alert. If I hadn't needed you desperately-if I hadn't called you immediately, you would have raced toward them. The same adrenaline that drives you drove me."

"Do you miss that?"

She shook her head. "I was a lot younger then. I've matured enough to see the consequences. Someone has to do it. Someone always will if we're to keep the balance. But it doesn't call to me anymore. I try not to resent it because it's useless, but I don't regret it."

"You'd wiped your cheek and smeared the muck from your hands there," he remembered.

"You don't remember War Two at all?"

He shook his head.

"I was platinum blonde then."

He turned, taking in the dark, dark brown tresses she wore now. Her eyes were tinted dark green. He remembered the way women had curled their hair, the stark eyeliner, the bright red lips. And he imagined it on her full lips. Against that smooth, silky-looking skin.

"Bet that was something to see."

"I always have been," she shot back.

Victor lifted his brows. "It's almost dull now-your hair-knowing what it used to be. And your eyes were brown, weren't they?" At her nod he continued. "Golden brown. Like sweet tea. So when do you stop fighting to fit in with those _normal_ mortals?"

"I'm sorry?"

"When do you let yourself be you again? Be unashamedly who you were born to be?" When her jaw dropped he rose. "Make you a deal. You stop hiding who you are, I'll come lay on your couch. You can shrink me. But not until then. How the hell can you expect to help those kids deal with what's in them when you're hiding who you are?"

"Victor, even among the elves I'm different. They're all very, very fair or else light of complexion with black hair and dark eyes. Dying my hair doesn't make me less. It was just a way to move among humans without drawing extra notice."

He shrugged. "That's where we stand." He turned, snagging the jeans and shirt he'd worn down to the pool room as he leapt up the wide stairs.

-_...-…_-_..._-

Victor entered the room through the patio doors. His face was dark and stormy. For once he'd traded his nearly uniform black for a white button down that was rolled up on his forearms. The group gathered looked up, judging his temperament.

It wasn't that tasking a challenge. He had two modes: pissed off and attack. Even in his quiet moments he was drawn-in and sullen.

Which was why several of his teammates gaped openly when he winked at the shrink they'd become accustomed to having around.

"Hair looks better that way. Nice."

And then he was gone, taking a plate from the sideboard and filling it before snagging one of the bottles of red wine from beside Xavier and continuing his trek toward his own lair deeper in the house.

It wasn't all that unusual. Sometimes he ate with them. Sometimes he didn't.

-_...-…_-_..._-

"Take my hands," she ordered gently. She extended hers, palms down, fingertips toward him.

Now he shrunk back. "You don't know what you're dealing with-"

Jaran scoffed at him. "Please. I've been around a lot longer than you. Hold your hands out, palms up, please."

He shook his head again, his eyes the wary eyes of a cornered beast. What was in him was ferocious and strong and she watched that flicker beneath the surface.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Not going to change you. I understand. _I understand what makes you_...and I think it's beautiful."

"I'm a monster, lady. Everyone here knows that."

She shrugged, turned to toss him a bottle of water. He caught it handily and instead of unscrewing the cap purposefully bit it off, spitting it aside to drink deeply of the decapitated bottle.

"Cute trick. Not one that I've seen before. Let me rephrase. I appreciate what you are. Inside. I'm not afraid."

Again she held out her hands.

"If you put me under I lose control."

"As you don't have all that much control at present I don't understand the concern."

He threw the bottle with a gasp, then held out shaking hands. His claws were extended. "I'll hurt you!"

Victor watched Jaran shrug. The instinct in him sensed no fear. Purity. A cleansed aura. Not innocence, not tenderness...more infinite patience. Control. An ally.

Jaran reached out to lower his hands where she wanted them, extended at waist level. She laid hers atop his, her fingertips grazing the pads of his palm. His palm was hard and tense beneath the light touch. His claws were hard at the base of her wrist. When they retracted and his fingertips rested there he'd be able to feel her pulse pounding in the thin veins beneath the fragile protection of her skin.

Victor's voice was a strained whisper when he met her eyes. "I'll claw you-"

"Even if you did impale me, there's no way that I'd bleed out before we're done here."

"I could rip your hands to shreds! If I clench my hands, I could permanently-"

"Shut up, Sabre. I don't care. This is more important."

"Why can't we-" he turned his hands up, wanting to hold them vertically, to match them exactly.

"Because that's a different kind of link and neither of us is ready for that. After we've explored this first bit I'll tell you more about the difference. But, Victor, we're wasting time."

She smiled at him. And he swallowed hard. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

"Why?"

"For what I might do. I won't mean to-not with you. But, just in case you can't hear me later, I'm sorry."

Jaran broke the contact to trail a fingertip down his troubled face. "Me, too."

Then she closed her eyes and pulled out the pain and betrayal and rage that drove him.


	5. Chapter 5

"Elves have been known to hole up for days and never leave the bed."

Victor snorted, flipping through one of her medical journals. Something caught his attention, causing him to cock his head in concentration before continuing on. "What? They have pizza delivery in those halls of yours?"

Jaran crossed her arms and kept staring at him. "The need for food and drink is transcended by the physical connection." She paused, certain she had his attention. "You feed off each other."

"For days?" he scoffed.

She nodded.

"Hmph. Have you ever done it?"

"Locked myself in with one person for days on end? Do I seem like I like other people that much?"

"So see, it doesn't work. You can't-physically-stay in bed for days on end. John Lennon proved it."

Jaran smiled and ducked her head to compose herself before arguing her point. "Elves are immortal. We have more endurance than humans."

Vincent grunted. "I'm self-healing. I can outlast any damn elf any day. But you're still going to need to eat and you're still going to need to go to the bathroom."

Jaran shook her head. "You're too absorbed with each other to be hungry and since you're not eating..."

The man across the room rolled his eyes. "This from someone who's never tried it."

"Most elves do take a bottle of wine with them. If for nothing other than the social connection of sharing it."

"So they're going to get drunk and then they're going to need to pee."

She smiled at him. "They need to stay hydrated."

"Because they're losing body fluids," he agreed.

Her expression told him he'd blundered before she opened her mouth. "Those body fluids become precious when you're in bed with someone for days on end."

His eyes nearly crossed. He imagined sweat-slicked flesh and the..._exchange of fluids_ to which she was referring.

"I'm off Fridays and I usually take weekends," she announced, getting up to leave the room. "I can take an extra day on either end of the weekend, too."

"So what?" he asked. He knew exactly what. He just wasn't sure what he was going to do about it.

She bent to the dorm-sized fridge tucked into a bookcase and withdrew two bottles of water, flinging first one, then the other in his direction. Victor caught both of them and just stared at her.

"Stay hydrated," Jaran told him before she sauntered out to cause trouble elsewhere.

Two weeks later he walked into her bedroom as she was in the process of taking her hair out of hot rollers.

He threw her a bottle of red wine.

"That needs to breathe some," he told her.

He was trying not to drool. She was wearing a slip-like she had plans to go out-and her hair was falling around her shoulders in big, loose waves. Bare shoulders. Bare, creamy, white shoulders. With that delightfully feminine swirl of lace and satin the only barrier between himself and more flesh.

Jaran tipped the bottle, studied the label, and cocked an eyebrow at him.

Which was when he decided to pounce, bringing her down to the bed so that he could loom over her.

"You have fifteen seconds to call and cancel with whoever you're seeing tonight," he warned. "I sent a message to your assistant to reschedule your Monday consults."

"Oh, Christ," Jaran murmured. His eyes bored into hers.

"Unless there's an emergency we're not getting out of this bed. I want you naked and under me and I want you screaming my name in very short order."

Her tongue came out to wet her lips. Her belly flipped and what wasn't apprehension was straight-up arousal. Which was why she arched toward him when he lowered his mouth to her neck. And why her hands slid beneath his coat when he started to tug at her clothes.

And why, when the time came, she cried out for him until she was delirious with the sensations he wrought.

And why she linked with him before she told him that she loved him.

Victor made love to her long and hard. She'd been right in her theory about the self-healing leading to prolonged arousal. As soon as he came he was ready for another round. At one point he wondered if four days was going to be enough with this woman.

Then there was always the possibility that he was going to either completely implode or spontaneously combust.

Jaran sighed beneath him as he shifted again. Her eyes blinked him back into focus as her head slowed its pounding. Her body sang out in regret when he moved to pull away.

Her hands at his hips stopped him.

"Not yet," she murmured, those big brown eyes begging.

"Jesus Christ, Jaran-" Victor shook his head.

"Please. Don't leave me yet."

His face was so serious. So gruff and foreboding all the time. To see his eyes like this, lazy and edgy at once...to feel the simultaneous tension and laxness of his muscles...this was a gift she wanted to keep as long as possible. In case it was only dream memories that would sustain her for the rest of her life.

"Jaran," he murmured, lowering his lips to brush her jawline. His claws had retracted and he smoothed his palms over her hair. "I'm going to kill you. You were so tight…I just don't want to hurt you."

She shook her head. Her light, silky palms moved up his sides, then past his shoulders and down his arms to slide under his. Her fingers curled around his and both had to shut their eyes at the jolt of being linked again. Victor's exhalation sounded more like the rending cry of a beast. He felt her pleasure and her contentment like it was his own. And the melding of senses doubled his own, so that he was instantly thrown into a state of both longing and leisure that was more than he'd ever felt before.

"Don't love me," he panted against her ear, fighting down the urges building in him.

"I can't help it, Victor."

His hiss of displeasure made her smile. It was the ferocious smile of a predator, though, and when he moved to pull his hands free she held him trapped.

"I'm not asking for anything," she spat at him. "You're the one who came to me tonight."

The man above her snorted. He purposefully lifted his head and looked at where her fingers were crushing into the backs of his hands, refusing to let him break the link between them.

"Promises," she corrected in a kinder tone. "I'm not looking for promises, Victor. I didn't demand declarations of undying affection. I didn't tell you I wanted roses or rings or words spoken at midnight."

"Midnight, huh?" he asked, looking at the clock. He'd held her underneath him since shortly before seven. Five hours had lapsed. He wondered if she knew what time it was. "Humans do marriage in front of a preacher."

Jaran rolled her eyes. He felt her exasperation and her humor and her simple love and lust. "Words spoken before men of the state always bind truly?" she asked.

Victor shrugged, letting a deep breath out. Jaran felt the twinge of the muscle tick at the side of his eye and lifted her face to press a soft kiss to his temple. She tasted, letting her lips trail over his jaw, then his ear before dragging the earlobe through her teeth.

"Jaran-" he growled, his low warning a direct contrast to the feel of the tightening in his loins. "Baby, I can't pull it back. I can't control it like this." Her pleasure was crowding in with his own. Her arousal coupled with his and made it more than he could bear.

"Fine, Victor. Be with me. Like this be with me."

His gasping breath filled her. The pain in it-the fear and trepidation and the desire to do just what she urged.

"Goddammit, Jaran! Look at the sheets! The mattress! Let go of my hands so I don't fucking hurt you!" he panted. Her body moved beneath his and his nerve endings shot to newer, higher awareness.

She shook her head and reached up, fusing her mouth to his, mating tongues when he didn't pull away.

Victor wanted to choke her. To remind her that he was part animal. To caution her to be careful. He'd been so careful with her before, reining in that part of him that want to bite and take and control. Even his teeth could hurt her-let alone the size of his body in comparison to hers and the fact that he'd dismembered harder beings than herself with the hands she wouldn't set free.

"Jesus, Victor," she complained. "Please stop. Please. Trust me. Trust this. If you hurt me you'll feel it."

"And lash out?" he argued as he met her eyes.

She shook her head. "Kiss me. Let the rest of it go and just kiss me. Forget that we're naked. Forget that you're still inside me. Forget that you're pissed because I'm stronger than you-"

He scoffed.

But he did as she requested, pushing the rest away to remind her just who had started this whole thing.

And he was rewarded completely with the response it evoked in both of them.

"I need more hands," he said against her open mouth.

"No you don't," she told him. Her body arched up beneath his, moving restlessly. "I couldn't stand it. I wouldn't live through it. I want you-badly-enough as it is."

Victor nodded and arched against her, slamming his hips into hers. The link formed by their palms drove him to a higher peak than he'd ever hit before. He couldn't distinguish between the cries Jaran called out and the ones she kept in her mind. Both were for him.


	6. Chapter 6

Before either had had time to settle he pulled away from her, moving to sit at the side of the bed.

A shaking hand reached for the bottle of wine standing forgotten on the endtable. He used his claws to slash off the entire top of the neck, cork and all. And he drank deeply.

Jaran watched him retreat. Watched his savage display. It didn't impress her. She wasn't certain if he'd just needed to destroy something or if he was still trying to prove a point. She was distracted by the motion of his throat as he swallowed again and again. When he lowered the bottle, when he let out a hitching breath, she reached out to him.

He felt her warm hand against his overheated flesh and closed his eyes. She smoothed over his biceps, seeking to comfort him.

Victor turned, giving her the bottle when she gestured again. "Be careful," he warned, indicating the broken glass of the neck. Like he was helping a child he turned, tipping the bottle toward her lips. Her sips were tiny. Precise. Ladylike even under the circumstances.

And when she met his eyes over the jewel green he was angry all over again.

"If you do that again I'm probably going to slap you. If I want someone in my head I'll let you know."

She shrugged.

Instead of striking out at her for her insolence he turned away, hands braced on his bare knees, and shook his head. "Do you not understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

"Victor! If I thought you were going to resort to violence with me I wouldn't be here-or _you_ wouldn't be here."

He showed her his hands, still shaking-although this time probably as much with rage as emotional outpouring. "Do you _see_ these? Do you know what I do with them?"

Jaran met his eyes. "I don't want to be the shrink tonight. Can you separate the two?"

Victor shook his head. "I was drawn to you a hundred years ago. If I hadn't been engaged in ripping men apart then I'd have taken the time to hunt you down."  
She cocked her head to the side, bringing the blanket up to wrap around her like a shawl. "I'm sorry you didn't. Our paths might have been much, much different."

"You can't save me."

"I don't think you need saving, Victor. And I'm greedy enough to know that even though we're both immortal we could have another hundred years under our belts."

He snorted, shifting to look at her. "You think we'd have made it?"

Jaran shrugged. "There's no reason for us not to."

"You heal. I destroy. You don't see that as coming at things from two totally different viewpoints?"

"You only destroy as an expression of yourself. Some would call that art."

"Whole lot of the displays at the Louvre this year of some Italian disemboweling another with his bare hands?"

"The Louvre's not in Italy. And you almost never disembowel people. You prefer to use a gun. It's one of the things that fascinates me about you."

"That I like to kill? That I go on these maddened rampages and just take out anyone who gets in my way?"

"If that were true you'd have a lot bloodier past. You take out your targets with very minimal collateral damage. You usually play by the rules of engagement. And you usually cause very little harm to those who really and truly are innocent." She pursed her lips. "At least in very recent history."

He let a half-smile slide onto his face. "You are so goddamned stubborn."

She nodded. "Only when I'm right."

"And you think you're right about this?"

She shrugged. "So far so good."

He took her chin gently between two fingertip and directed her stare to the bed's pillowtop. Deep gouges had ripped into the mattress through the sheets. "That could have been your arm, your shoulder. Your hand this last time when you wouldn't let me go."

"What did I tell you when we first started working together? Even if you shredded my hands completely I wouldn't bleed out. And you wouldn't get any enjoyment from it-you would instantly feel my pain-because of that connection." She rubbed her cheek against his palm. "I don't think being different is an ugly thing. I'm sorry you do. And, if you'll look, there are two, maybe three sets of claw marks on the left. Only two for certain on the right. You went over the edge with me in your arms twice by my count. With me _in your arms_. I felt you press me closer. I felt your hands and the hard points of your nails on my back and my shoulders. And you didn't hurt me. You didn't hurt me, Victor. I don't have a scratch on my flesh."

He frowned at her. "Maybe it already healed."

Jaran growled, grabbed his hand, and dragged his fingers partially across her forearm before he snatched away from her. Beads of bright red blood welled up along the three short lines.

"Watch, Victor," she snapped, holding out her arm.

He watched her bleed, his chest heaving as though he'd run across continents. The blood welled, formed drops, and finally one rolled down toward her wrist.

Jaran's voice became tender, confidential. "I'm still bleeding. I'll keep bleeding." She shifted closer to him, reaching for the bottle in his other hand so that she could set it aside again. "If I step on that bottle cap it's going to hurt like hell and I may even need a few stitches, but I'm not going to die from it. I probably won't pitch a fit-or if I do it'll be directed toward myself since I knew it was there and didn't pick it up. Life goes on, Victor. For as long as it goes on. And you have an opportunity to step away from all the ugliness and mediocrity that we survive in daily and reach for something that gives you something deeper. Why are you angry about that?"

"Because you took the choice away," he told her simply.

"If I'd offered you would have rejected it. I didn't coerce you into bed. I simply made sure that you got your money's worth."

"How do you know I won't hurt you?"

"You haven't before," she told him.

"_Yes, I have_. Just not with you."

She smiled up at him. "Have you dismembered any of the women you've slept with before?"

He shook his head and looked away. "No. But it's never been like that before. I'm not in control of what's inside me when we're like that. You know that."

"I use the same technique on you all during therapy. One of the kids made what amounted to a tornado in my office the other day. She lost control completely and I got hit with a globe before I could get her calmed down and break the link. It hurt like hell but I lived through it."

Victor looked at her like she'd grown an extra head. "Did you say anything to anybody?! Did you go get checked out?! Who the hell was it that hurt you?!"

A soft laugh greeted his concern. "It wasn't that big a deal. I made her clean up the mess, then I sat her down and we talked about what she felt when she came out of it."

"Where did she get you?" he asked.

"_She_ didn't hit me," Jaran proclaimed. "A globe stand bounced off my head. But it-"

He jerked her head forward, looking for damage. He found it. There was a bruise just beneath her hairline at the back of her neck. "Here?! My God! She could have taken your head off!"

Jaran pushed him back, shoved him flat onto his back. "Listen to me! I am an adult. I will take the consequences for my actions. And if what I do can help any one of you sleep even one minute more peacefully at night, then I've done my job. But I get to reap some of the benefits as well."

"Lady, if I'm a benefit you're hard up."

She shook her head at his self-mocking and smiled deep inside. "I think you may be the prize at the bottom of the box," she whispered over him.

"You dyed your hair back for me," he murmured as he reached up to finger through the masses dangling around them.

"I used a simple spell to remove the brown dye. This is natural."  
"And the contacts are gone for good?"

"Contacts I'm keeping. But I'll keep them clear if that's what you like."

Victor shrugged. "Why isn't it what you like?"

She smiled. Then she shrugged. "I'm not sure why I changed. But I did and then I just never changed back."

"Don't tell me you love me, okay?" he requested as he threaded his hand around the back of her head, drawing her down to him.

"Whatever. You're not the boss of me."

He chose not to respond in light of the fact that her mouth was hot and wet and now tasted faintly of old Italian wine.

Sometime Friday morning they saked their need for each other and snuggled close. Victor ignored the thrum of pounding on her door, ignored the cell phone and room phones that rang and rang and rang. Instead he simply lay there, content and satisfied and full of gratification ...drowsy with it. His hand trailed gently up his lover's arm, then down again, then up again. Jaran recognized that it followed the same beat of his exhalations and matched her own with it, letting the lazy trend slide her into drowziness. She loved where she was, curled up against him, completely exhausted, with her face resting above his heart and her forehead tucked just beneath his chin.

Victor wasn't doing any complaining either-for once.

He knew a good thing when he had it. A soft, pretty woman tucked up against your naked body was it. She seemed to fit there, like she'd been molded to slide seamlessly into his nooks and planes. The thought made him hum a quiet growl of appreciation.

"What?" she asked him.

He shook his head in reply, then took a sharp right. "Did you have a date last night?"

She didn't answer and he turned to look at her, his expression querrying.

"I had dinner plans, yes. Not a date. Not with someone I anticipated spending any amount of time with socially."

"Is it bad that you missed it?"

Her smile was one of mischief. He'd seen it on the faces of children his entire life. "It was bad manners. Does it hurt me professionally and will it have an ongoing effect on my life? I really highly doubt it."


	7. Chapter 7

"You're so good looking," Jaran frowned at him.

Victor patted the couch next to him. "Wrong brother to try that tact with," he countered. "Logan's the one who got all the charm, all the savoir faire, all the class."

"Eh. Pretty boy. You're the one who got the solidness. You're taller, your shoulders are broader-"

"That's right-I'm the big bumbling one. The maniac mutant. He's the lady killer."

Jaran sank down onto the table in front of him. Her eyes met his and she reached out to take his hands in hers. "You've had your share of relationships with women."

"Women throw themselves at Jimmy."

"He doesn't throw them back, either."

"What does that mean?"

"That it takes your sexiness to a whole other level knowing how careful you are about who you take to bed."

"Doctor, you've got it all wrong-if one of us is up for easy sex it's me. He's the one who clunters in all the rest of it."

"Which means that a woman is far less likely to be hurt by you. To let her feelings lead her where you're not willing to follow."

"Baby-"

Jaran slid closer, then shifted her weight onto her knees, now on either side of him.

"Oh, Jesus," he moaned, looking up at her.

"Victor, you are every bit as worthy as your brother. What's in you is different. Your attraction is different as well. Not less because it is, just different. No, you'll never be the one with that narrow-hipped cowboy look. Yours is more sophisticated. It's the way you wear your clothes. The way you walk into a room. The quiet sarcasm in your humor. Your tendency toward understatement."

"I look like a damned beast dressed up for Halloween."

"There is something primitive to you as well. He's...folksy-"

Victor laughed. "Folksy?"

She nodded, her hands brushing through the hair at his temples. "Folksy. You know-not primitive, but sweetly, timidly, old-fashioned."

"Great. Primitive would be better, then?"

She nodded. Then she shrugged. "I don't know. I just know the reaction I have to both of you-two hugely capable, highly intelligent men of very similar coloring and vocation."

"I'm not going to bother arguing that one. Surely to God _you_ of all people know the difference between the cadet and me."

"You're not as dark as you wish you were," she smiled at him.

"I'm certainly no creature of the light."

"You're perfect."

Victor offered no argument to that one. He was distracted by the presence of her lips so close to his. Of her narrow waist and the flare of her hips and the scent of her perfumed lotion where the collar of her shirt had been left open. It was black. She was wearing jeans and boots, and her hair was pulled back into some sort of tail so that the loose waves of it hung halfway down her back-all streaks of red and gold and blonde. Her face was clear, unfreckled, unmarred. And he was willing to bet that her underwear matched. It had every time he'd taken her clothes off so far.

"Bedroom," he murmured as his lips caught hers.

"You have forty minutes of your session left," she told him.

Victor frowned. "Then you'd better cancel your next session," he told her.

"Why?"

She let out a little shriek as he stood straight up. His hands caught her below the hips as his mouth closed over hers. "Because I don't believe in letting anyone rush me. And I'm even less fond of people telling me what to do."

She was laughing up at him when the door came crashing in.

Victor half-turned, shifting her away from whoever had barged in.

"Oh. Good," he sneered. "I was going to call you. The witch doctor here needs you to clear some of her afternoon up," he told the young man who stood in the doorway.

"Oh. Um. Uh."

Jaran ducked her head to look at her assistant. "It's okay, Tommy. I think Victor's only teasing."

"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Creed, sir?"

"Look, son, you have two choices. You can stand there and blush like you've-"

"I thought I heard her scream, sir. And, since I knew she had you down on the books..."

Victor rolled his eyes at Jaran. "See? Even your shrink puppy over there realizes that sleeping with me is a terrible idea."

"He's never done it."

Victor arched one brow. "He assumed that if you were screaming it had to be because I was on the edge of dismembering you."

"People don't like psychologists. I don't take it personally."  
"You will if I lose it and rip you to shreds."

"And see, I just don't anticipate that happening," she told him.

Victor let her slide down his body. Jaran accepted the rejection since the mood had been broken. Especially since she'd been the one to cause the shatter.

"Your car's arriving this afternoon," she noted, slipping behind her desk. Victor looked over his shoulder at the man still standing in the doorway.

"Do you want me to go get the director?" he asked.

Both patient and doctor shook their heads.

"I'm not going to throw Mr. Creed down and have my way with him, Tommy. You can leave now."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm right outside if you need me."

"You got it," she muttered under her breath.

Victor waited until the kid closed the door and turned a chair around so that he could straddle it facing her desk. "You know he's going to report that."

The woman in front of him lifted one shoulder. "And I could really give a fuck? If Xavier fires me I can go back to doing my real job."

Victor just looked at her. "This isn't real work to you?"

"This isn't really making much of a difference. But, since we've gotten back on track, I guess we really should talk about your last mission."

"You want to go pick up my car with me?"

She hesitated. He saw the desire, then he saw the shutters in her eyes clamp down. "I really want to. But I really do have an afternoon full of patients. Will you take me for a drive later?"

He nodded without any of his usual wisecracking or sarcasm. "You want to go get dinner?"

She shook her head, slipping on those sexy half-glasses she wore to read when her eyes got too dry for contacts. It seemed that after a couple dozen centuries even elvish eyes blurred the fine print. "I'd rather eat here. I'm going to put Gambit through the wringer and I want him to be able to see me as normal again afterward." He watched her pick up the microfilms with data analysis of one of their genetic codes and hold the thin black sheets up to the window. He squinted his own eyes to make out the details. No wonder she had to wear glasses.

"Who is that?"

"Me, actually," she told him.

"What are you looking for?"

"Certain alleles hold a hereditary tendency toward the development of mutant oncogene cells which lead to cancer..." she began absently.

"Jesus Christ! You have cancer?"

She shook her head, still absorbed more in the DNA graphing than the conversation. "No. None of us seem to randomly develop it like mortals do. Lung cancer, gum cancer, and mesothelioma are the only kinds I've ever seen the elder race develop. And only in one subject for the first two-a man whose smoked and chewed practically every waking moment for the past two and a half thousand years."  
"How long's he had the cancer?"

"Six months."

"How long's he got?"

She shrugged. Finally she turned around to look at him. "How the hell should I know? I'm no oncologist and no pathologist. I'm just trying to figure out if some of the same genetic twists and turns on my double helix are present on some of yours."

"Me, personally?"

"Nope. You're impervious. I don't know if lung cancer could get you-I know your brother can only get drunk if he drinks sufficient quantities of a high-proof fast enough and even then it doesn't last long and doesn't leave him with side effects. I suspect that cancer would be the same. You simply self-heal too fast for it to damage you."

"Hmph. So basically I'm just taking up space here."

"You don't like when I probe."

"So you're trying the passive aggressive route?"

She looked up at him again. "We've still got twenty minutes if you think that bit on the couch was too passive for you and want me to try it again."

Victor chuckled uncomfortably. "I prefer to do the asking. And I'm not into quickies."

"Probably the self-healing again," she murmured.

"Are you talking sex or chromosomes now?"

"Both," she told him, sitting down to flip open a notebook. She made marks, but nothing he understood or cared to ask about. "I imagine what leaves mortal men feeling appropriately hulled out wouldn't have the same effect on you. Your body would be almost instantly aroused again before you could withdraw. Thus you'd be good for a few more rounds before any true satisfaction registered."

"So your smooth talk about the differences between Jimmy Logan and-"

She looked up, slipping the glasses off as she fought and lost the battle with a grin. "Jealous? Don't be. I've never slept with anyone for my work before. I really and truly am genuinely attracted to you. And, if you forgot, most of the men I've slept with have been elves. We've been known to shack up and not surface for several moon rotations-we're not going anywhere, so what's the hurry?"

"You have issues."

"A few resentments. Some untapped desires. Perhaps my fair share of psychoses. Yeah, okay, maybe issues."

Victor shook his head and stood, spinning the chair so that it sat facing the fireplace again. "I'm leaving."

"Have a good afternoon," she called pleasantly.


	8. Chapter 8

He was pleased with his new toy. Pleased she'd come out with him in it. Less pleased that somewhere along the way she'd gotten annoyed with him. Possibly veering toward truly pissed.

"You make it hard for people to get close to you. Make it hard for them to appreciate your humanity."

"Is this a make-out session or therapy?" he asked from the other side of the car.

She looked over at him, her tongue running thoughtfully over her teeth. "Falling in love is _not _a good idea."

Sabre didn't look at her. He kept his gaze on the vista spreading before him. They were at the veritable edge of the earth. The land fell sharply away. A full moon, at once close enough to touch and far, far away, was reflected in rippling lines on the tumbling black sea far below. No stars marred the velvet sky. No boats, no cars, no other signs of life distracted from the haunting solitude of the cliff.

"Then don't."

"_O-_kay. I guess that covers that. And with such sensitivity, too. What the hell is this? A test? Some game? Do you even have feelings?"

"So I'm guessing we're not in shrink mode tonight."

"_You _asked _me _to come here. _You're_ the one who came to _me_. I have worried and fretted and-"

Victor looked over at her. "Jaran, I've been around this block before. I promise I'm not going to latch onto you. I know that we'll have to go our separate ways eventually. It's hard enough to reestablish yourself over and over all _by_ yourself. I'm not going to complicate your life. You're not going to complicate mine forever."

His peripheral vision caught her movement and he glanced over. She'd shifted toward the door, bracing herself against the corner formed by it and her seat. Her temple rested against the cold glass of the window.

"You need to have more fun," he told her. "Even in your work, you need to let go of some of what keeps you up at night and just _live_."

His hand reached out and he stroked gently over hers where it rested on the seat. He was utterly careful to use just the pads of his fingers-fully aware of the damage he could do her tender body with his nails.

"My job isn't about fun and laughter. It's dealing with the abscesses that form in a human being's mind."

"That's why I wanted you to be free with me tonight. Just listen to the woods and the moon and beat of your heart. No promises. No demands. No excuses. They're there now, just like they've always been. When you're faced with the reality of what your lifespan means, just let them remind you. They were here first. They're strong and steady now. And, no matter how damn immortal you are, they're going to outlast you."

She was quiet for a long time. "You reinvented yourself over and over and over with your brother. Why am I less?"

Victor moved his hand and shifted, working the controls that would have the car's top dropping into its well. "Do you want to drive?" he asked instead of answering.

She shrugged. She could feel his eyes when he turned to look at her again.

"It's just different, Jaran."

"Why?"

Patience had never been his strong suit. His raised voice was enough to frighten a family of wrens out of their nearby home. Neither noticed them winging away-blacker against the black. "For one thing, because we were volunteering to fight in wars, goddammit! When you're offering your life to the government they're willing to make a few exceptions. And when you're such a freak that you can make it through the toughest of the training camps-when your body heals no matter what they do to you, when you can see better than the mongrels, when you're adapted to run and climb and kill-when they recognize your special _gifts_ they're willing to make the exception."

"James served out of a sense of duty. Why do you serve?"

"Because I like to kill. Deep down, something in me is savage enough to feel pleasure at that rip of flesh, that hot spurt of blood, that conquest when you win. Deep down, something in me knows that if I'm not sharper, faster, and stronger, _I_'ll be the one that doesn't survive. It's kill or be killed and it really is just that simple to me. You can try as you might, but the truth is that I really am more animal than human. And that doesn't bother me."

"If you were on my couch I'd disagree. You sound an awful lot like you're convincing yourself."

"Nah. I've just had since 1860 or so to think about it. Lots of time on my hands between wars."

"Why are you serving now?"

"What the hell else am I supposed to do?"

She shrugged.

"I'm a freak, Jaran." He held out his hands. "And, unlike some of those other yahoos, mine's a hell of a lot harder to hide. Everybody else can keep it under their hats until they need it." He smiled as he examined his claws. "Mine's closer to the surface. Right there for the whole world to see."

"You're not a freak."

He arched a brow at her.

"A freak is somebody who cuts up Barbie dolls or steals his sister's underwear. I know Xavier refers to the abilities as mutations. I think he's only partially correct. Human beings _are _animals. All life stems from the same tree. Some people just hearken farther back than others."

"So you don't think that I'm all that different?" he scoffed.

She angled her head to look at him. "I think you're very different. But not because you have claws or your eye teeth are a little longer or because you have a lousy attitude half the time."

"Only half the time?"

"Yeah. The rest can only be termed 'piss-poor' at best," she countered.

That got a laugh out of him. "You're one hell of a shrink."

"I try."

"No, you don't. You don't want to be anywhere near most of those kids."

"You're right. I'd rather be in some little cottage on a beach somewhere collecting driftwood and seashells. But the way of the world now is that everything's for sale. And everything has a price. So I pay to play the game."

"How long has our government known about you?"

"Since before what you call War One."

"And they're okay with that? They've never tried to lock you up or control you or get rid of you?"

She shrugged. "I'm not that hard to kill. I've never given them any reason to doubt me. And what the hell is what they're making me do now if not controlling me?"

Victor ran his fingertips up and down her arm absently as he thought about that. Jaran was shocked as all hell when he lifted the back of her hand to his lips.

"Jesus, Victor," she sighed, pulling it free and turning away from him.

"Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asked in a normal tone of voice. "How can you be so sure when you tug on your hand that I'll let it go rather than hold tighter? What makes you certain that you won't just push and push and push until I go apeshit all over you? Do you not realize what I've done, what I do?"

Jaran turned to face him. "You don't need more faith in me! You need it in yourself! You talk about _me_ being too careful, too guarded? You won't let anybody close! You shy away from every person who wants to mean anything to you!"

"They're going to die on me! The only person I ever loved turned his back on me and walked away, even though I was shouting his name! What the fuck to you want from me?"

She turned toward him, lowering her voice. "I don't want promises. I won't make pledges. And, unless the army gets really really desperate and sends me to the front, I'm not going to die on you."

"What do you want from me?"

"Just you," she told him, turning to kneel on the seat. "Just you," she whispered before she lowered her mouth to his.


	9. Chapter 9

Victor's consciousness exploded. His hands came up to tangle in her hair, then rush over her curves and planes, then slid back up to cup her face. Their tongues sparred recklessly. Jaran loomed over him, her hands on his cheeks, then his chest, pushing at the jacket he wore so that she could feel the sudden pounding of his heart. And Victor took it. Because as much as he would deny it to himself, something in him wanted this woman to feel free with him.

Jaran straddled his thighs, her long hair falling like a veil around them. He could taste the salt from the sea spray on her and it made him want her more. She heard the harshness in his breath and wanted to breathe the same air as him. Her heart pounded in her ears as his pounded beneath her hands. His groan shook the night air and tightened the ache low in her belly.

And when words would have flowed from her mouth she checked them and kissed him harder.

Which was why he was shocked as all hell when she reached down, popped open the car door, and slid across him to the gravel roadway.

"What the-"

"Shush. Come on. Come with me," she answered. Her hand trailed down his arm to take his. And, in what he would later decide was some witchcraft induced haze, he just stepped out of the car and stood beside her. Fucking well left the keys in the ignition and the top down and just quietly shut the door behind him.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know yet," she told him. "But not here. Your car doesn't call to me."

He arched his brow and let a half smile quirk his lip. "What calls to you?"

"The woods. Will you come with me?"

She'd pulled away from him so that they stood an arm's span apart, fingers linked loosely.

"Yeah, baby, I'll come with you."

She grinned. In that flash of smile he saw something feral. Something vicious and sweet and unapologetically selfish. He knew why her code name was Magnetism. He knew why her contemporaries, her inferiors and superiors both, had come to a place where they termed her Animal Magnetism. Right before they decided she was a cold-hearted bitch. He was actually looking forward to that part, too.

Jaran tugged and he answered, looking both ways before he ducked his head and jogged after her across the highway.

"What are we looking for?" he asked

Jaran shrugged one shoulder, her form loose and light. "I don't know yet. I will when I find it."

Victor wasn't sure about that answer. He pulled her backward and let the momentum of his body crash them together. His hands grasped her hips and he leaned close, brushing his lips down her neck. "I don't know how long I can wait," he growled into the skin beneath her ear.

Jaran let her head loll backward for the space of a second, then blinked her eyes clear and stepped forward, her hands wrapped around his fingertips. "Just trust me."

She led him at a brisk pace, then upped it. Victor could see the fingers of moonlight snaking down between tree branches when he looked behind them. The woman in front of him monopolized the opposite view. She let her fingers slide from his and held her arms close to her body, slipping between tree trunks-weaving in and out of the saplings and ancient oaks and pine trees without seeming to trip on underbrush. Without seeming to feel any loose limbs scratching at her clothes. Faster and faster she led him away from what he knew.

Victor followed her. His own loose-limbed gait felt an echoing desire to get down and lunge through the forest like a beast after prey. He kept that in check as he paced her.

"Jaran!" he called quietly when she paused in a small opening. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths. She was otherworldly, standing before him in her black blouse and trousers, low boots covered by the mist's damp tendrils. Her hair was starting to curl at the ends from the moisture in the air. Her eyes were wide-seeking and lost and still confident and certain.

"Which way?" she asked him.

Victor's grizzled face changed with the easy smile. His hands came up to question what the hell they were doing in the first place.

"Does it matter? What's wrong with right here?"

Jaran wrinkled her nose and shook her head. He reached out, clutching at her so that she was plastered up against him. His eyes bore hotly into hers, even in the near darkness.

"Yes," he whispered. "Right here."

Jaran let him kiss her. Let him hold her tightly, his arms strong and capable and insistent. Then she pulled back and shook her head.

"It'll be better. We're close. I can feel it."

Victor let his hands slide down to pull her hard up against him. "I'll tell you what I can feel-"

Jaran caught his wrists and laughed, leading him the first few steps again. "Come _on_, Victor!" she chided, taking his hand. He let her lead, following agilely as she skipped over fallen logs and skirted tangles of stalky shrubs.

"What are we looking for?" he asked behind her.

"I want glitter bugs and flutter-bys," she told him.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. Then he nearly knocked her down as she turned around.

The clearing wasn't much of a clearing. The ground was soft beneath his shoes. Her hands were warm as they took his again and pulled him toward her.

Except that she didn't stop. She let herself sink to the ground until her butt hit the earth, tugging him along. Victor nearly stumbled in his hurry to follow her. In the end they wanted the tangle anyway and his body covered hers.

Jaran felt even the earth beneath her tremble at that first solid contact. The man above her was so much larger than he sometimes seemed. And so frail in his humanity. The way he braced himself on one elbow to keep from crushing her touched her. But Jaran wanted the crush tonight. She wanted to be of the earth, not held to some higher standard. So she pulled harder, palms brushing up beneath the heavy wool coat he wore to find the muscle beneath thin cotton.

Victor growled, sliding the jacket away, rolling with her so that his fingers could manipulate the tiny buttons of her blouse. Which actually became more difficult since it brought her fully against his arousal and made her breasts such easy prey. In the end it seemed easier just to tug the damned thing over her head.

"Jesus, you're going to be cold," he objected as the air hit her skin. A thousand nerve endings screamed at the transfer of heat and she shivered above him. Which just further slowed his though processes.

Luckily instinct was strong in him. He rolled again, his hands reaching for the coat he'd lost, and he centered her on it, keeping her thighs firmly wrapped around his waist. Jaran's hands wandered lower, admiring the trim fit of the jeans he wore over his carefully honed body. When she tugged at his t shirt she found the smooth, firm skin that covered the hard muscles a sharp contrast to the coarse bristles that covered his cheeks.

The rest of their clothes seemed to burn away as each fought for control. They rolled again and again, torturing bodies that had played this game before. When Victor's palms brushed over both of Jaran's he felt his whole body jerk with an extra punch of need and want and desire and enjoyment. The third time it happened he lost patience and gave in to the desire to mate-mindlessly and carelessly and selfishly. His head tipped back and he roared what he couldn't find words for.

The moon was flickering on the other side of its orbit when Victor rolled to his side, tucking one hand beneath his head so that Jaran could pillow hers on his elbow. Not speaking they lay there, face to face, for a long time as their bodies calmed and their hearts slowed.

Victor's smile came back before their breathing had quieted back to normal

"Wasn't this much better than your car?" Jaran asked him.

Victor shrugged and bent his face, drawing her bottom lip between his. "I don't really give a damn."

Jaran laughed. He ignored her, searching her face. "Your eyelashes are about fifteen inches long," he observed.

This time he'd have seen her blush if there'd been any more light. Even his acute vision couldn't pick up what he felt as he rubbed his temple against her cheek.

"I still haven't seen any flutter-bys," he murmured against her hair.

"You have to be quiet," Jaran told him, licking her lips nervously. "Quiet and still."

"I can do quiet and still," he promised. He was surprised when she turned away from him. Then she glanced over her shoulder to check on him as she extended one arm along the ground.

"I've got it," he told her, inching closer. "Quiet and still. Just pretend I'm not here." He fitted his body to her round bottom, tucking himself as close and he could get. His mouth moved over her bare shoulder and one arm shadowed hers, stroking softly up and down the long, smooth muscles.

His trail had taken him up the back of her neck, his face buried thoroughly in her beautiful thick hair, when her words stirred the air around them.

"I've got one."

Victor eased up, his hand cupping her arm, resting above her wrist. The moon had found a path, lighting her flesh like blue neon. There, crawling lightly from one fingertip to the other, was the smallest bat he'd ever seen. It's wings were huge comparatively. And like a cross between bird's feathers and a butterfly in beauty and texture.

"_Jesus Christ_," he hissed, his fingertips slipping slowly toward her palm. The little mammal sensed nothing to fear from him and came closer to investigate.

"England's tiny vampire bat," Jaran told him, glancing back at him with dancing eyes.

"It's all in the teeth, huh? Will he bite me?"

Jaran shook her head. "His fangs are too small. He's only a danger to bees and mosquitos and lightening bugs."

The beastie dragged itself onto the first of Victor's claws. Jaran heard his lips part in surprise. "Why isn't he afraid of me?" he asked. "I've got blood on my hands that animals all over the world sense and run from."

"Because you're not a danger to him. You're a brother. A sympathetic soul to his plight of searching for prey. And doing it in a larger world that keeps changing."

"You're too romantic to be a doctor."

"I'm too inured in helping to be anything else."

Jaran turned a bit more, watching Victor's face as he watched the smaller creature.

"Why aren't we colder?" he asked without shifting his attention. "Why isn't the ground harder beneath us? I've walked these woods for miles around and never come across this place before. Never seen these trees or heard these night sounds. Where is all this going?"

Jaran shrugged beneath him. "It wasn't there for you to see. Even in these modern times there remain a few secrets the elder race holds for their own. You just have to listen to the wood and the earth to find them."

"Can he hear them?" Victor asked.

"He's a commonplace thief to this land. Some insect population control. Some hazard for the unwary."

"He's beautiful," the man objected.

The bat's miniscule head cocked, then it held its upper body alert, beginning the cumbersome trial of bringing its unwieldy body cross-country to launch from the high vantage of Victor's wrist.

"You offended him when you called him pretty," Jaran teased.

"Brothers should be able to tell each other everything," he played along. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and made love to her again. The glitter bugs and fireflies would have to wait. Dawn was threatening to grey the sky when they dragged on their damp, wrinkled clothes and started picking their way through the trees.


	10. Chapter 10

"What are you doing?" Xavier asked

Victor shrugged. "I think she's drunk."

Logan lifted his eyebrows, obviously offended by his brother's statement. "So what? You're just going to sit here and enjoy it?"

Victor nodded and leaned back against the couch. "It's been a hell of a show..."

He'd walked in to find the woman contemplating her options. The choices seemed to be narrowed down to Chardonney or vodka or whiskey. A bottle of Tequila, seal broken, was pushed away.

"I always go for the hard stuff," he observed as he leaned against the doorjamb.

"Does alcohol effect you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I think the deal is where we heal so quickly-"

"So that's a no."

He nodded. "That's a no." He sauntered toward her, letting himself fall back onto the couch beside her. "So, the light's off by your secretary's desk. You usually leave it on if you're working."

"I'm not working."

"Yeah. No on-duty drinking, right? You're law-abiding."

"Don't you have a mission briefing or something?" she snapped.

"In a little bit. I stopped by to tell you 'bye in case they want us to head straight out. I don't know who the hell they think we're going to talk to way out here."

"So you'll miss the briefing?"

"Somebody'll catch me up. And now that we have all the gadgets available to us it's just not that hard to pinpoint anybody's twenty."

"And the damn cameras."

"And the damn cameras," he agreed. He reached for her whiskey, popping the seal before unscrewing the cap. Jaran watched him as he took a long, biting slug. His breath hissed out through clamped teeth as he lowered it. "Jesus Christ-sometimes I forget how much I love that burn."

Jaran's eyes were wide, but shuttered. She reached for the bottle, grimacing as she took the first sip.

"Throw it to the back of your tongue. Toss it down your throat."

Jaran, ready to admit he might have more experience with the matter, took another sip. She shuddered and shook her head.

"How can you drink that?"

"I love it," he admitted. "I'm a sado-masochist." He took the bottle back, chugging deeply from it.

"Do you have to drive tonight?" she asked, his law-abiding rule-book-toter.

Victor shrugged carelessly. "I don't know. I'm not at the briefing."

"You're going to be labeled unreliable and they're going to toss you in a cell somewhere," she warned.

"Let 'em try. You want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly. If I'd wanted to talk about it I'd have done one of two things-found someone to talk to or made an appointment with a damn shrink."

"That would have been a good one. Every medical form I've ever seen asks for occupation. Can you imagine it? Putting yourself down as a psychologist to see a psychologist. _Gee, doc, you see there are these crazy patients of mine and they think they can fly or spit bullets or climb buildings or shit ferns_..."

"You're not in a very good mood."

"Go get a glass and some juice. I'll make you a drink."

"What kind of juice?" she asked suspiciously.

Victor laughed. "Something you like. Whatever's in that little fridge over there. I don't care."

She did, crouching so that he was able to admire the very nice shape of her derriere before she pivoted on her skinny heels and looked at him. "Is it better with ice?"

He shrugged. "Bring some for now. If you don't like it you can wait until the ice melts and try it that way."

Jaran laughed, knowing that he was getting annoyed with her. She smiled up at him as she tucked her feet up under her on the couch cushion.

"I went to your room first," he told her, pouring vodka and then the orange juice cocktail into the tumbler.

"There are probably cameras in there, too," she told him.

That gave him pause. He figured the security around this place was tight. He'd been to the control room for the compound at large. He hadn't considered that individuals' rooms were rigged.

"Really?"

She shrugged at him.

"Where did you find them?" he asked, clueing into the source of her angst.

Jaran turned, pointing. "So far, in the corner up there and in the window alcove. I figure if those were only video feeds they probably have some audio in here. Somebody wants to know who's crying about what."

"I thought that psychologists were confidential. I thought all doctor's had to take oaths or shit-like lawyers."

"There's a fine line in the military. We're paying for your treatment and we have to know if you're fit enough-mentally and physically-to do what you're asked without increased risk to the rest of the group. But, in my humble opinion, it should be a medical decision made by a team of specialists. Not some clandestine information gathering event. Who the hell watches the tape and analyzes my analyses? What gives Xavier the right to second guess my decisions and recommendations?"

He refilled her glass, adding a little more vodka since she hadn't complained about the first one.

"Obviously I'm in no danger of being cut," he intoned. "They're sending me out tonight."

"What if you only _think_ they're sending you guys out on missions and in reality they're going to trap you and send you to some secret containment center where you'll be drugged or frozen or some shit like that?" she asked.

Victor let his arm come around her shoulders. Jaran cradled her drink to her chest and sank back against him. "Baby, I don't think that's going to happen. I really don't."

"They don't trust you enough to bond the adamantium to your skeleton. They've done six other people while I've been here. Why not all of us?"

"Do you want it done?" he asked.

"Would I like to be impervious to broken bones at least? Hell, yeah. If they could figure out how to make it stick to my muscles I'd love it."

"Nah. You wouldn't be as flexible. You're much more fun this way." He ran a hand over her upper arm, letting his fingers trail back up the lean, smooth muscles. "Soft. Silky." He leaned in, nuzzling his face against her ear. "Yum," he told her, drawing the lobe between his teeth.

Jaran giggled. Just what he needed. An easy drunk.

"Have you never, in all the years you've been around, gotten wasted before?" he asked suddenly.

She frowned. "My brother once had a drinking contest with some other creature. He said his fingertips started tingling just before the other guy passed out, so he didn't finish the game."

"What were they drinking?"

"Beer. Ale, really, but it's all the same."

"Ah-ha."

"I've had wines and champagne and the occasional margarita. Which was why I thought I'd like tequila. Not so much, though."

"Apparently not. It can be strong by itself."

She nodded. "And I really hate beer." She held out her glass. Obligingly he leaned forward for the bottles, filling her glass with vodka, tucking into the whiskey himself. He left both within arm's reach before settling back against the cushions.

"Why do you think they put your office in the admin wing rather than the med unit?" he asked as he drew his fingertips through her hair. He loved it. In its natural form she had wide streaks of gold and caramel and russet and auburn and a dark tawny color blending into an oaken shade. Her eyes were like wet leather.

"So that people weren't embarrassed to be seen coming to or from it and so that you all didn't have to face anybody who'd been damaged when you do come."

"Very astute. Why not give you a room in the tactical wing?"

"Too close to the action. If you have a rough session anyone in planning phases can see you come out. If you get angry with the powers that run the joint you'd be too close for them to prevent you from doing much damage." She crunched the ice cube left in her glass. "You were coming to say good-bye to me?"

He nodded.

"In case you had to leave suddenly."

Victor shrugged. "It's been known to happen."

Jaran pressed her lips together. "But you've never taken an proactive step before."

"I came to your room, brought you good wine, and threw you down. That's not good enough for you?"

Those big eyes stared up at him. Considered him. "This is more of an expressive response, though. No physical gratification. Merely emotive."

Victor shifted, turning toward her on the couch. "Don't count on me being sentimental. Could be I was just looking for some quick action before I settled down for my meeting," he told her.

She didn't believe him. Her lifted brow told him that before she even opened her mouth. "When has it ever been quick and easy between you and me?" she challenged.

Victor held his hands wide. "Hey, love me or leave me, but don't complain about my style."

She smacked him lightly on the chest. "You're so full of it."

He traced the pad of a fingertip down her nose. "The smile's better," he whispered.

She felt it melt from her face. "They're watching me work," she said softly. "Which means they're probably listening to my sessions."

He nodded. "I got that. And we've been in here-"

She let her face drop to his shoulder and nodded. "I know. But that's personal and they can go to hell for that. I'm not ashamed of it. I won't be made to feel ashamed of it. But I've asked you to open up-I've linked with you and called up emotions-I'm sorry, Victor."

"Shush, Jaran," he told her. "It's not your doing. If you found two cameras, maybe that was it. How'd you find them?"

"I happened upon them. I was watching the clouds, looking for inspiration, and the one in the window must have some auto-focus mechanism. When I stood up to see if I could open the window and let in some real air it made a soft whirring clinkish sound."

"A whirring clinkish sound huh?"

She shrugged. He let his lips travel over her jawline.

"Maybe you got 'em all," he said again.

"Lame, Sabre. Keep trying."

"Have another drink. It'll help melt your clothes off and you won't even worry about having an audience."

She laughed. "Will you help me look for more?" she asked.

Victor shrugged. "I have limited experience with bugs. I know most people hide them in electronics but short of taking everything in here apart, I don't know what I'm looking for. And, if I did take everything apart, I can only promise to find the ones that look like spy gear from the movies."

"You're no help," she pouted.

"How'd you take apart the others?" he asked.

Jaran pointed again. A policeman's nightstick lay in the corner. "I pulled them out of their holes and smashed the hell out of them. Then I ranted and raved for a little while-while I was looking for the next one."

"Only found two?"

"Only found two."

"Maybe that was it. One, plus one spare."

"If you went to the trouble of secreting two, would you stop there?"

"Nope."

"Me, neither."

"So, whatcha wanna do?"

Jaran got up to pace, then stopped and frowned at him. Victor smiled encouragingly. His grin broke out when she pushed up her sleeves.

"Most professionals use electronics as hiding places?" she asked.

"They always do in the movies. I think the pulse from appliances and stuff help mask the signatures of the devices."

"Gotcha." She reclaimed her nightstick and smacked the shit out of her telephone. Victor just took another swig of his whiskey and leaned back. She got the lamp next, leaving the room to be lit by the moonlight coming through the window. Next she pounded her computer into tiny pieces, then the keyboard and dictaphone. The printer/copier she sent out the window with a grunt. That was where her boss and his brother stepped in.

"She didn't hit anything or anybody with the Xerox, did she?" Victor asked.

Logan narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you high? She starts throwing office equipment out the window and you don't stop her?"

Victor saluted him with the bottle and took another pull. "Someone feels as though her civil liberties were violated. How would you like to know that your every moment was being caught on tape? That all the secrets you share or reveal are being recorded? Hmm?"

Xavier had his hands up in 'surrender' as he faced off against Jaran. She was holding the baton like a baseball bat. Victor figured his head was the next thing to get bashed.

"Now, Doctor, I understand your reservations, but let me reassure you that these measures were taken solely for your protection. We wanted a way to monitor your progress so that if a patient got violent you'd have an extra pair of hands to sound the alarm. Or another record if you were too emotionally involved in the lancing process to take accurate notes afterward. While you were linked-I mean-"

"Jaran, you don't want to kill him. You're too good a person to be okay with it," Victor told her in his lazy growl.

"Goddammit, Victor!" Logan scolded. He moved to step between the other people.

"I've made love to her on this couch, Logan," Victor hissed, jumping to his feet. "You've spilled your guts in here-all of us have. I don't blame her."

"Jaran," Logan tried. "Let me take you to the control room. You can see and hear for yourself that no one is doing anything more than looking out for your welfare. The modifications were made with your best interest at heart."

"Shove your intentions, Logan," she spat. "I'm done here."

Xavier reached for the door, slamming it shut when she went for it. "You've seen a bit much to just head out. Promise me you'll wait for Mr. Creed to return and then we can sort this out. But for now I need to put him on a plane."

"Where are you sending him?"

"To an institution in New York of all places. With the rest of his squad. He'll be perfectly safe."

"They've been enforced."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Reinforced," she amended. She shook her head.

"She's had a couple of drinks, Victor explained. "She means with the Adamantium. She only had a couple of shots of vodka-"

"She emptied an entire decanter of Araviur before you came in!" Logan objected.

"_Really?"_ Now Victor was impressed. That shit hit hard. He was proud of his girl. Hell, he didn't know if he could keep on his feet after that much of the strong liquor if he'd downed it all between dinner and bed.

"Focus, children," Xavier called.

Jaran gave him the finger. Victor looked at his watch. He looked sorrowfully up at the woman. "I'm sorry. I really do have to go." He could hear rotors and figured the team was waiting for him on the roof.

"Be careful," Logan called over his shoulder.

"Be careful," Jaran told him.

"You'll be here when I get back?"

"Here or in the woods. You'll be able to find me."

"Okay, then," he clicked. Then he turned and strode out, the black coat billowing as he stalked down the hall. He looked very lord of the manor and very bad boy at once. No wonder her heart turned in her chest whenever he walked by.

"Oh, God, I don't need those kinds of thoughts," Xavier complained. "Why can't you let your guard down when there's something I can work with in there?"

Logan just heard the woman's laughter ring out and the massive sigh that issued from his boss. Having enough of enough, he, too, left the room.


	11. Chapter 11

"Where would she take them, Victor?" Logan answered when Victor called Jaran's mobile number.

"What the hell?" the older man snarled. "What are you doing answering her phone?"

But he knew. Deep down he knew.

The phone was her link to the entire world. She loved the thing like most women loved their children. He'd called her on it rather than the compound's main line because he wasn't altogether sure she'd still be at the mansion when he got there.

Invasion of privacy was a huge, insurmountable sin in her eyes.

He saw her reasoning there. But it didn't calm the storm building inside him.

"She left? Didn't she?" he asked in a voice more timid than Logan had ever heard. "But why didn't she take her phone? Jimmy?"

On the other end of the line the lean, athletic man closed his eyes. In his heart he'd known, too. Jaran might run. And she might have even taken a few of the younger mutants who were precious to her. Might have offered shelter to the rest. But she'd have never just disappeared in the middle of the day without a word to anyone. Her laptop had been open on her desk. Her clothes and purse and personal photographs were upstairs in her room. Her goddamn car was in the garage.

"There might be something going on…" he told his brother. "Something bad."

"I'm on my way now. I can't get there any faster than I would have anyway."

"I know it."

"Jimmy."

He paused.

"This woman is precious to me."

"I know it, brother."

"If something's happened I'll have my revenge."

The last appointment on her books was the young woman, Emma Stone, whose sister Logan only partially remembered. Bits and glimpses of a happy past. A solid, clear memory of the victim of a gunshot wound. Like her sister she was beautiful. There similarities ended.

It reassured Victor that Jaran had most definitely not taken off willingly. Certainly she enjoyed the young woman, but they weren't particularly close.

Gambit, who most assuredly was one of Jaran's favorite puzzles, had already come to this conclusion and even as the helicopter bringing Victor's team home drew closer and closer, the younger man followed a trail that was steadily growing colder.

"I've got 'em," he simply said later that week. Victor, only days behind his trail, was catching up quickly from the other side of the business. He's never let drop some of his previous contacts, those from the darker side of the tracks and had taken Gambit's leads and gone to those who would know.

On the professor's orders, Gambit held and waited for Victor, waited for a strike team to assemble. Minnion and Logan would be joining them from the mansion. There were four young mutants as well as Jaran Springsong being held on a weapons dealer's private island. The mutants chosen led to some interesting questions. Logan pondered the known facts as he and Minnion rushed to meet up with Victor and Gambit. All of those taken had adaptations that allowed them a measure of invincibility. None were exactly immortal, as he and Victor were, but they'd be harder than hell to kill. If someone was doing research on how to create a super-warrior again, they'd be among some of his top picks. What puzzled him was that none of them were the more combatant mutants housed by Professor Xavier at the time. None with what might be classified as special weapons abilities—such as Victor's claws or his own or Gambit's. None with so-called physical adaptations that would have made them highly valuable operatives—such as flight or x-ray vision or super-sonic speed. Why take only those whose flesh was impenetrable in one way, shape, or form?

Two bodies of water away, Jaran wondered the same thing. She'd been taken almost as an after-thought. Which was good and bad. Anyone with half a brain would have snagged her laptop, too, so that she could re-create her observations for them. Instead it was as if she'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time & had been snatched along with little Emma. Now they knew they had her, though, and if recent hours proved the norm, they intended to make use of her.

A trained operative probably would have paid a little more attention to the voice in her head that told her something was wrong. She'd felt disquietude, nervousness, that wasn't like her. Had felt like she was under close examination. These things she'd chalked up to her dissatisfaction with both assignment and her sense of betrayal at finding the surveillance equipment in her office. She felt like a goldfish in a bowl. Felt restless without Victor to take the edge off. She'd shrugged off the sensation of being watched—she knew now that she was being—and wrote if off as ridiculous when the hair on the back of her neck came up during some of her clinical consultations. If it happened more often with some of the youth sheltered and trained there than others…well, some of them were creepier than others. It might be expected that her emotions would end up in turmoil. Although from now on when she was feeling paranoid she'd take to carrying the little taser Victor had bought her after they'd started their messed-up version of dating. And she'd damn well move to an interior room with no windows and no doors for anyone to spy out the weaknesses and strengths of their little houseguests.

She'd been questioned ad-nauseum about the little delinquents.

And on the morrow she expected that her non-answers and vagueness would cease to serve her well. She dreaded seeing her cell door open like nothing she'd ever experienced in her life.

And she wondered what Victor would think to find her completely gone.

Would he look for her in the woods, returning to his more savage ways when he didn't find her there? Would he stay with the group? More and more of late he'd expressed displeasure with the leadership and focus of those running the mansion. He wanted more lateral control when he took his team out on a mission. And he'd been questioning the purpose behind those missions.

Would he know and trust that she'd loved him with everything in her?

When the door burst open and the man himself gestured for her to come to him she knew that her doubts had been unfounded. She embraced him, tightening her arms oh-so-briefly around his waist, before following his terse commands to move on.

There was blood on his hands. Blood that soaked from his clothing to hers when she held him.


	12. Chapter 12

Jaran looked out over the edge of the drain pipe. It had been hidden beneath the waterfall probably to avoid the added expense of properly dealing with liquid waste from the facility. Which meant that there was no telling what was going into the local ecosystems.

Which was totally beside the point.

Beneath the surface were razor-sharp rocks. And that surface was a good eighty or ninety feet away from where they stood now. Plus there was the added satisfaction that anyone who survived the plunge to surface again could expect to feel the bullets of a half-dozen of the world's best snipers for hire. Not that that was of huge consequence to most of the members of their little group.

They'd done some testing. Most of the people standing here could withstand higher-than-survivable temperatures, long dunks in smoke-filled chambers, flame, crushing pressure, and freezing cold. The others were well able to deflect bullets in one way, shape, or form depending on their individual adaptations. Then there were the impervious ones that nothing seemed to hinder anyway. Hell, Victor Creed would be the first one to take a bullet and laugh in your face the whole time. The _only_ thing that she'd found that worked every single time on every single one of them was a taser. And God help them if anybody else found that out.

Of course, that was what had been used to get half of them here, so that cat was pretty much out of the bag.

She'd have to do some testing to see if it was effective while the subjects were in what she would term 'combat' mode.

For now she had to find a Plan B.

"Where's Jaran?" Gambit asked suddenly.

He, Sabretooth, and the Frost girl were the last ones standing on the ledge.

They'd decided to send a few at a time so as to avoid clumping into one massive target.

"What the hell?" Victor complained. "You go. I'll find her."

"No way, man. They'd _kill_ to get their hands on you. You've got it all going for you."

Victor rolled his eyes. "Just what do you think they'll do if they get another opportunity to pick Jaran's brain? They won't screw up this time. We won't be able to get in here the same way twice and it was a damn job and a half to figure out a way in this time."

Emma Frost shifted frightened eyes to Gambit. Victor reached out his hand.

"Don't change on the way down," he advised. "I don't want you loosening boulders and I don't want to have to worry about you shattering when I get her."

The young woman nodded once, obviously terrified.

"Gambit's going with you. He's our ride out. He won't leave you behind."

"What about you?" the other man asked.

"Don't wait a long time. If the shit gets anywhere near the fan get out. If I can get her into the woods we can both disappear. Don't close the book on us-it might take some time before we can make our way back to the mansion."

"I don't know about this, man..."

Victor held his hands wide. "I'm not asking you to be a hero. If I'm only five minutes behind you I expect you to be waiting on that tarmac. If it takes a while longer I understand. Don't sacrifice the masses for a few. That's all I'm saying."

Gambit reached out to shake his hand, then put his elbow under Diamond's. At a run they leapt past the roaring water.

Victor watched them go, then turned, convinced that he was probably going to take Jaran's head off and hand it to her. _If she went back for notes..._

She hadn't gone back for notes. She took very few notes anymore. There was little she wanted committed to paper or hard drive. Some scientific documentation as far as human chromosomes and medical findings were required if she wanted to submit them for worldwide acceptance. But there was no way she was letting her work with her current patient roster come anywhere near public consumption.

Victor found her working on taking the screws out of a plate of gridwork covering a deep, black hole.

"What the hell are you doing?" he snarled.

Jaran jumped. "This is Plan B," she told him in a small voice.

Victor reached past her, claws extended, and yanked the vent cover free. "We don't need Plan B. We have a Plan A. Do you know that this leads to the incinerator?"

Jaran shrugged. "It was worth a try."

"No, it wasn't. Get your ass back over there!" He pointed imperiously.

Jaran's face didn't show fear so much as determination. "I can't go that way."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I can drown and I can be shot and I can be broken into a million little pieces. One more time...I am undying, not unchanging."

Victor dragged her by the elbow. He heard the low heels of her boots skitter on the wet cement of the pipe's floor.

"Victor!"

"Dammit, Jaran, I'll take care of you!" he growled. Before she could object further he wrapped his arms around her, trapping hers against her chest, and leapt from the end of the conduit.

Jaran felt his muscles tense around her and behind her.

"Cross your ankles," he ordered tersely.

She did so and she felt him turn his body so that they were falling facing the east side of the island. She was linked closely enough to him by that point that she felt the impact of the steel that tore into his back.

"Oh, Christ," she whimpered.

"Deep breath," he ordered. "I'm going to take the brunt of the entry, then you've got to roll fast so that I'm back over you."

It happened so fast that Jaran couldn't slow it down, not even with all her years' experience. She could feel individual drops of water on her face but she couldn't focus on what she was seeing go by her. It wasn't until she felt the jolt of Victor hitting the water that she obeyed his last order.

The lungful of air she sucked in didn't last long. Victor held her beneath him, swimming with strong strokes of his legs. The impact had jarred a good bit of the air out of her, that much he'd felt. The damned clear water meant that anyone above them could take a nice, easy shot at him as they passed.

So he kept to the deepest channel of the river, hoping his dark coat and pants would blend in with the cold, dark bottom beneath the water.

Long before he'd have deemed them in the clear Jaran angled up, her own strokes becoming panicked.

Jaran could have screamed with frustration when Victor shoved her back down. She was desperate for air and fought him with strength he hadn't realized she possessed. But in good conscience he couldn't let her surface. Not here, where there were sentry posts before and behind them. Finally he managed to get a decent hold of her arms in one of his hands and direct her line of sight at his face.

Jaran watched his distorted features as he held one finger in front of her eyes. He pointed to himself and then the surface, then to her and the bottom. His intent was clear enough. He wanted to surface first while she waited.

She nodded her understanding. And Victor sensed her despair. Without giving her the reassurance he wanted to he kicked straight up, breaking the surface with all the grace of a goddamned breaching whale. And damn near as much spray. He sucked in a deep breath of clean air and was gone before the hovering helicopter could focus in on him.

Below Jaran watched the horrifying ballet of bullets striking the water, their paths straight and true, trailing bubbles behind them. Victor ignored them, pulling her to him to share the oxygen her body needed to function.

After he'd filled her lungs he hauled her to the side of the river, cupping her face in his hands so that he could make sure she was still functioning. There was a distance in her eyes, a separation from him even when he met her palm with his-and it terrified him like few things had ever scared him in his life.

Motioning again for her to wait for him he surfaced behind the boulder at the river's edge and filled his lungs. He repeated the trip several times, boosting her functionality as well as waiting for the unseen predators to pass over them. Minutes ticked by as if a stopwatch had been implanted in his brain. This would be a hell of a lot easier if she'd talked to him _before_ they'd sent all the others to the plane.

Finally he deemed the time right and led her into the deeper, faster water again. He figured they had another two, two-and-a-quarter miles before they ran into the white stuff. That was where the rest of the team would have gotten out and headed due east toward the landing strip that Logan and Minnion held.

Jaran felt the cold invade every cell of her body. She watched Victor leave her again and wondered if she shouldn't have gotten rid of her boots at some point. That was what survivalists preached-if you're in deep water to get rid of heavy, bulky items of clothing. Not that Victor's trademark coat or heavy black shit kickers seemed to be slowing him down.

When he got back to her she was smiling at him.

He'd never felt so relieved in his life. His response was to grab her and press his lips caressingly to hers. Oxygen escaped, telltale bubbles betraying their location, but he didn't care.


	13. Chapter 13

"What were you laughing at?" he asked when he helped her scramble up the embankment two hours after dusk. He figured they were maybe five miles from the beach. The water had turned clear again and was shallower, the river wider. It wasn't somewhere he felt safe leaving Jaran.

"What?"

"A couple miles back," he gestured with his head. "When I came back down you were back with me-and you were practically grinning."

She shook her head. "There's just no telling. I don't think I've been quiet for that long in decades."

"Oh, goody. Something to look forward to. Can you sense any of your people's hideouts?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Like in the forest by the mansion. The secret places?"

"On a man-made island in the South Japan Sea?" Her voice dripped sarcasm.

Victor shrugged. "You don't have to be snippy about it."

"Come on," she urged. Her pants and boots weighed her legs down. "Wood sense," she warned.

Victor followed. He manfully refrained from reminding her that he'd been living a life of hiding a lot longer than she had. Instead he concentrated on following her as she leapt gracefully from fallen tree to stump to spongy patches of grass that sprang back up after she'd passed. Once she glanced back to watch Victor leap, ricocheting from one living maple to another in the low, lunging form of a cat. It gave her pause. She'd seen him rip apart guards in the compound. Had seen more than once when his anger got the best of him and he couldn't keep the claws from extending. Somehow this was different.

"Up," she told him, pointing to a tree in the near distance. It still bore its leaves and was probably the oldest on the island. It would have a bower that would support their weight while they rested a bit. Victor nodded, not breaking stride, and lunged up the trunk. Jaran gathered herself and jumped for one of the lower branches. As nimbly as an acrobat she found her feet and leapt again. Victor caught her hands as she neared the top and pulled her up even with himself.

Jaran told herself it was the cold that made her shiver as she looked into his eyes.

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Do you trust me?"

Another nod.

"Then what?"

Jaran shrugged. "I don't know. I can't explain it."

He nodded. He'd been waiting for months now for her to get over the novelty of thinking she was in love with a savage. It had been bound to happen. He'd been pretty raw during the breakout. Had man-handled her since then. The honeymoon-so to speak-was over.

"You need to hang your coat over a branch so that it can dry out," her soft voice told him.

Victor nodded vacantly. He didn't care a whole lot about the coat. Or his own discomfort. He'd been in worse places. But he obliged, letting it slide past his arms as he balanced against the trunk of the oak. Jaran took it, shaking it out so that she could lay it flat.

She smiled when she looked at him. "I don't suppose I could talk you into tying your shoes up there, too," she wondered aloud.

Victor shook his head, a superior smile just curving the corners of his mouth. "No. And neither will you. Strip off a layer or two if you want, but you need to be ready to run."

Jaran nodded and fiddled with her blouse while he tugged his turtleneck over his head, leaving him in just a damp wife-beater and his dark pants. He slumped against the tree trunk, hooking his foot on a branch just below the one he rested upon. Jaran stepped a little farther out on the branch to hang up her own. Victor figured she was looking for a graceful way to distance herself from him and closed his eyes to give her the out. She was a goddamned useless shrink. Not an operative. She'd never made bones about it. He could cut her some slack.

Which was why the feel of her settling sideways in front of him made him jerk.

"Shhh," she cooed.

He felt her shiver. It was instinct that made him wrap his arms around her torso, pulling her close against him. It was something else that made him nuzzle beneath the heavy locks of hair that roped around her shoulders. Jaran locked her hands around his bicep, nails digging into his flesh. Her head tilted back and her face turned toward him and Victor took what was offered to him. Her mouth was warm and wet, a sharp contrast with the cold clamminess of her skin.

"I'm sorry I forgot about your limitations," Victor murmured. Jaran shook her head.

"You're so cold," she whispered. Her hands trailed over his flesh. The wool of his jacket, and that of his turtleneck, had held the cold runoff. It had barely dried and even his impervious flesh bore the evidence of constant drenching and then wet material. His undershirt was just as wet as when he'd crawled up the riverbank. Her hands rubbed briskly everywhere she could reach.

"I haven't been warm since Korea," Victor told her.

The psychologist in her reacted first. "Huh." It was untapped material. And something, now that he'd brought it up, that she probably should have picked up on. "You don't seem to mind it when we're in bed."

"Okay, I stand corrected. I haven't felt warm for a prolonged period of time since the last jungle war I fought. There are brief reprieves when I have you naked and under me."

"I didn't realize that you're always dressed like it's the middle of winter. I've never peeled less than two layers off you."

"Let's save the head shrinking for another time, okay?" he asked.

"Does Logan have similar issues?"

Victor shrugged. "What the hell do I care? Apparently not, because he's constantly parading around in next to nothing. Even when he moved up to Canada there were times he got hot and stripped down to his shirtsleeves in the middle of wintertime."

"So no. But then he didn't have the feeling of comfort that you did when you were engaged in special ops."

"Comfort, huh?"

"Having a purpose and knowing what it is-it's something that all humans derive comfort from. What we call animals, too. Working dogs have been known to lament and die when they're retired. Horses put out to pasture because of their age suddenly suffer from ailments far more numerous than their counterparts."

"Your ability to bring barnyard references into a conversation when you're sitting in my lap practically naked is disturbing."

She smiled up at him. Her fingertips trailed over his smooth brow. "It's been a hell of a day."

"That's more than a little my fault."

"What's the next phase of Plan B?" she asked.

"You're assuming we missed our plane?"

"You brought a plane?" she asked.

"I sure as hell didn't walk on water all the way from England to get you out."

Jaran sighed and tucked her head into his shoulder. Victor snuggled her closer and let his eyes close again. "We're going to have to find a way to be invisible for a while," he said softly. "They need to relax the hunt and relax their guard and then we'll find a way to commandeer a boat or something."

"Or we could just go kick-ass on them and steal one."

Victor shook his head. "Not with the twenty-four hour manhunt. They have attack birds and hunting dogs. I won't risk you taking a bullet because I rushed things."

"Okay," she told him, reaching up to kiss his mouth again. Victor felt everything in him knot up. "It's your show."

"Close your mouth," he ordered her on a chuckle. Jesus Christ the woman would talk a saint to death. It was a bloody wonder the creeps who'd held her hadn't cut out that pink tongue of hers.

"Have you ever made love in a tree?" she asked after a few minutes. Which, of course, got his juices flowing.

"Not yet. You?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure it's possible. I'm just not sure it could be done discreetly and silently."

"So basically you're just jerking me around?"

She laughed. "Took your mind off your problems, didn't it?"

Victor shut her up by taking control of her mouth. She was quicksilver beneath his hands, half-turning and trying to crawl into his skin. He'd have welcomed her there. She might be comfortable sitting fifty feet off the ground on a tree branch, but it was far from his idea of a great way to spend the night. Even if he did have access to all the best parts of her body.

"I want to get out of here," Jaran told him breathlessly.

"You will. I'll get you out."

"Soon, Victor."

"O_kay_, Jaran." Her words were panicked, her hands frantic on him. He caught one hand, linking fingers palm-to-palm. He felt her desire and her fear and her desperation. And something underneath all of it that set off a panic in him. A panic that was linked to a pleasure so pure as to be painful.

"I need the rest of my forever with you," she sobbed under his mouth.

"Oh, _Jesus_."

"Please..."

"Yes," he panted. His kissed covered her face and neck. "Yes, baby. Yes."

Making love in the tree was one of his more delicate maneuvers. It required almost constant shifting and surveillance of the surrounding area. And it did a lot to put them on an even keel. It did a lot to sending him right over the edge so that when she told him she loved him he repeated the words. And he meant them.


	14. Chapter 14

Victor shivered almost uncontrollably. Jaran was there. Her breath was rattling out of her chest, her body wracked by violent shivers.

He'd already hung his overcoat around her-not that it was doing much other than trapping the cold water next to her skin.

"Baby, we've got to be real smooth, real quiet," he whispered over his shoulder. He hadn't heard dogs yet but there were plenty of foot patrols and helos covering the grounds. Searching for them.

"I'm trying," she told him brokenly.

Victor turned, resting his brow on hers. "I'm sorry."

Her objections were delayed by a particularly jarring series of shudders. "It's not your fault. It wasn't even about you."

"Next time you're afraid of something you talk to me about it, you got it?" he asked.

She nodded. Her muscles ached so badly. Especially the ones in her neck and legs for whatever strange reason.

"_Jesus_," Victor implored, looking skyward. His face came down to rest on her still damp hair. They needed to stay out of sight-away from beaten trails-but he couldn't ask her to get back in that water again. He wasn't sure he could make himself get back in that icy river. The last time he'd gasped out loud before he could stop himself. The muscle cramps were just going to get worse. Forget that neither one of them had eaten anything in going on two days. They needed fuel. And they needed a quick refuge. Damn these people for clearing the woods. Trees would have hidden them. She was a woodland elf. He was a wild animal. What the hell was he supposed to do out here in farm central?

"I don't like Southeast Asia," Jaran chattered beside him. "I thought Southeast Asia was supposed to be warm. Sunny. Smiling natives and all that."

"Welcome to real life," he muttered. "Don't believe everything you read on TV."

She laughed at his play on the words.

"Come on. I have an idea."

"What are you doing?" she asked. He was standing next to a haystack, then he crouched and sort of dove into it.

"We've got to get you warm," he mumbled.

"Hey, not to question your motives, there, but you're almost blue yourself."

He snorted and reached for her hand. "Let's go," he ordered, scooting into the opening he'd created.

Jaran considered, then took the cold hand in hers and slid in next to him. Victor had cleared out a little space, making a nest of sorts.

"Rest first, then we'll find something to eat."

"I'm not into small mammal sushi," she warned him.

"Neither am I," he grimaced, reaching to tug the coat off her shoulders.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"We need to shed as many layers as we can so that our body heat actually gets trapped around us instead of working to dry out our clothes. Trust me."

"I've heard that before," she muttered as his trembling fingers fought at the buttons of his shirt. Only the knowledge that winter in the lower hemisphere would still have to be contended with later kept him from ripping the damn thing.

Jaran reached over her head to pull off her own blouse. Victor was down to his naked chest by the time she emerged in the dim reddish glow coming from the opening he'd left.

He nodded at her, reaching for his pants.

"They make weird haystacks here," she complained.

"They're a different kind of people, different kind of land." His attempt at reason was lost on her.

"I hate to think what kind of creepy crawlies are in here-what kind of cooties we're going to end up with," she told him.

Victor just shook his head and stuffed his socks in his boots, sliding his slacks the rest of the way off. "Don't bring up stuff like that. I'm hoping that the winter was cold enough to kill everything and spring hasn't gotten enough of a foothold to spur them into life again."

"Very optimistic," she agreed, hunched over in the tiny space. The air was already filled with the opposing scents of their bodies and that of the hay. "What are you doing?!"

Victor glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'm closing the door."

"Why?"

"Two reasons. One: I don't want a big sign that says 'Look in here' and two: I want to trap our body heat. Think of this as a big primitive electric blanket."

"Will we run out of oxygen?" she worried.

"Jesus, Jaran, we're out of options," he complained, easing backward to where his coat was spread. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the plot, either, but it was all he'd been able to come up with. In theory it should keep them from further developing hypothermia. He closed his eyes in the near blackness and spread his arm in the woman's direction.

"I'm sorry," she told him, shivering as she snuggled in next to him. He'd stripped off everything. She did so now as well.

"We're in good shape in here," he told her, rubbing his hands over her goose-bumped flesh. She curled into a ball and he wrapped his frozen body around her. "Try to sleep. We'll be better off for it."

"Are you going to stay up and keep watch?"

She felt him shake his head. "At this point they either catch us or they don't. I don't have any other great ideas. So no. I wasn't going to stay awake on purpose. I need to zone out and recharge just like you do."

Even her sharp eyes couldn't distinguish the shape of his silhouette, let alone his features, as she half-turned to study him. She had no idea if he was being straight with her or not. Still, when she felt a particularly violent shudder wrack his body she gave over. If they ran out of air in here at least they were together. At least they'd get over being cold. If they got caught they'd either be killed outright or dragged back into that damned lab where there was at least heat and meal service and running water. Not that running water had been anything they'd been lacking lately. No, indeed, she chuckled to herself, Victor had cured a long-standing desire to go white water rafting.

"Do I want to know?" he murmured.

She shook her head as he rubbed his hands over her arms and belly and wrapped his stronger, muscular leg over hers. "Probably not. I may or may not tell you someday," she chattered. "Go to sleep."

He nodded. She felt the moment that his body stilled. Hers was still plagued by the shivering despite their shared warmth. She knew when his hands stilled completely and went lax that he'd slipped into slumber. Without a watch and with no way of gauging daylight she had no idea how long she lay there, safe with him, waiting for sleep to overtake her as well. Finally she succumbed, letting her breathing even out and her body meld with his in the dark, warm cocoon.

"I want a blueberry pie and the biggest, thickest steak in America."

"Listen for a truck," he told her.

"What kind of truck?"

"Jesus, Jaran, I don't care. We'll evaluate the transport when it comes our way. Just don't go to sleep, okay? Listen for a truck."

They waited, poised, for most of the night. Victor made her shift her body around a couple of times so that she didn't stiffen up too badly.

"There," Jaran whispered. "Coming east."

"Got it," he murmured. He checked the sky, the moon, and then the truck. His grin was feral when he looked back down at her. "Ready?"

"Don't kill him, okay? Not unless you have to?"

"Baby, this is Farmer Brown coming our way. We're onto bigger and better hayfields."

"I think you're nuts."

"I think you're turning blue."

She nodded and took his hand when he offered it. And leaped when he asked her to, landing gently beside him atop the old military surplus 4x4.

"You know our government probably sold this thing to these people, don't you?" she asked.

He nodded, surveying the land they passed through the slits in the bed. "You'd be surprised how many insurgents and insurrectionists kill us with our own materiels."

"You're a depressing person to spend any time whatsoever with."

"That's not what you tell me in bed," he countered. It garnered the laugh he'd hoped for.

"Ready?" he asked.

"You've got to be kidding me?"

"Another truck is coming up behind him. We need to get off now. Opposite side of the road."

"Well, at least the trail is good and muddy, right?"

"It's perfect," he assured her.

What he failed to mention was that he also _borrowed_ the guy's bag, hoping it had something lunch-y in it. It did. Victor was appropriately grateful.


	15. Chapter 15

Victor growled at his brother and slapped at his shoulder.

"I need you to help me at your computer," he ordered the younger man.

Logan's brows went up. "Why the hell would I do that?"

Victor's face was dark when he turned around. "Because I'm asking, _Jimmy_. Because I never ask. Not a damned thing. Now get up and show me how to use it, then get the hell out of my face."

Logan considered the response. Considered the fear he saw under his brother's bravado.

Loden interceded. "Come here, Victor. Use my laptop."

Victor shook his head. "I need his big one. I want to look something up. On the internet," he amended.

Loden caught her smile between her teeth. "You can do that over here. Come, I'll type for you and it'll go faster."

Victor met the woman's stare. His mate told him that this woman held his brother's future. She disbelieved coincidences and found it too telling that the woman had called herself Loden and his brother called himself Wolverine for longer than the two had known each other. And that they'd managed to link.

"_Victor,_" she sighed. "Trust me."

"I would-but it's not just me."

"I'll keep your secrets. As will your brother. You can peel his skin off in long, thin strips if he doesn't. I'll even hold him down for you. Deal, Logan?"

Logan nodded. "Or you can use mine. Whichever. Loden's good with them, though. It might be worth it to let her help us."

Victor nodded. "Thank you, Jimmy." He sank onto the couch cushion behind where Loden had set up shop on the coffee table. She'd her herbs and stones and bits of things spread around her. And was writing spells or some such thing on her word processor. Logan shook his head as he perched on the couch's arm.

"What are you looking for, Victor? What kind of information?" Logan asked his brother.

Victor shrugged. "Someone is hurt. Or sick. I need to know how and I need to know why."

Loden shot Logan an imperceptible glance. Her gut instinct told her that he only cared about one person enough to worry. Logan's expression told her that he shared the impression.

"I'll start with a basic web medical sight. What makes you think she's sick?"

"She's in a lot of pain. It wasn't that bad at first. Wasn't bad for a long time. But all of a sudden it's gotten a lot worse."

"What kind of pain?"  
"I don't know."

Logan interceded. "Where is it?"

"I don't know. I can't tell-everywhere now. She can't even take off her shirt. She holds her arms crossed all the time and she's even showering in her camisole because-"

"Breast pain?" Loden asked, shocked. Elves were hugely healthy. Localized pain usually had some ongoing factor-boots that were too small or an abusive spouse or the wrong kind of bed. "Is it just after you've made love?"

"I'm not hurting her, Loden," Victor growled, his voice going hard and cold again. "It's been weeks. She can't even stand for them to brush up against anything. It hurts worse when she's not wearing a bra, but she has to take them off _sometimes_."

Loden ran a hand over her face.

"It's not cancer," Victor declared. "She's done studies on the alleles you have in your systems. Elves don't get cancers."

"All right, Victor," Logan soothed. "It's all right. Calm down."

"Let's see what the human database says. There's not really a WebMD site for the elder race, but we can just take a peek anyway."

"How are you going to find it?" he wanted to know.

Loden showed him. "I'm going to go under symptoms. It's not like she's been diagnosed with something and we want to know more about it, so we start with what we do know." She typed 'breast pain' in the search box. A short quiz popped up. Victor answered the questions tersely.

"She's not pregnant?" Loden asked.

Victor shook his head mournfully. "I can't-she doesn't mean to, but even the barest of touches hurts her."

Loden ducked her head to hide a grin. "But elves gestate differently than humans. We begin to act as mothers from the moment we conceive. One of the options on the site is an impacted duct. Breasts didn't start off as toys, boys. If she had gotten pregnant, her nipple may be swollen shut from the lack of passage of the milk from the gland."

Victor shook his head. "She'd tell me if she was. And she'd have stopped drinking."

"Elves believe wine is okay during gestation."

"I was talking about the coffee and the soda. But thanks."

Loden nodded her agreement. Jaran certainly wouldn't risk her child's welfare for her own caffeine hit.

"Besides," Victor was saying, "It's everywhere. The first time we really had a problem, I hadn't even touched her nipple. I used to kind of cup her, from below. You know?"

"So the pain is in the fullness of her breast?" Loden asked.

Victor shrugged. "I told you. It's everywhere."

"Did you feel a lump?" Logan asked him quietly. "I know what you said-but think about it and think carefully. Was there a lump or mass that you could feel?"

Victor shook his head. "_No_."

"New powders or lotions or creams? Does she look swollen on both sides?"

"Yes," he answered. "And the undersides sometimes look reddish-kind of angry. Not streaked with red like she has and infection, just raw and uncomfortable."

"Poor Jaran," Loden whispered. "I wonder why she hasn't jsut gone to the healer?"

Victor shrugged. "Someone gave her some flowered soaks for muscle tenderness. And to draw impurities from the skin. She's tried that and it doesn't work, although heat does sometimes."

"Heat like in the shower? Like she has some kind of respiratory thing going on?"

Victor rolled his eyes. "I know the difference between bronchitis and breast pain, Loden."

Loden smiled at him. "I'm sorry, Victor. I don't know what to tell you."

"I should take her to a doctor?"

Logan nodded. "Soon."

His brother's jaw clamped. Loden reached out to stop him from rising. "There is a homeopathic healer who is half-elven in Salisbury. Try them first. But honestly, Victor, I'd get a pregnancy test. They're cheap and easy to find and work just as effectively on us as they do humans."  
"That's shocking," Logan decided.

Victor nodded. "I wish that were it. I'd feel better if I knew she would only hurt for a little while. But Jaran told me elves don't get accidentally pregnant-that both parties have to wish for the baby."

"Maybe both parties _did_ wish for a baby."

He smiled at her and shook his head disbelievingly.

"I looked it up on the internet," he smiled when he walked into Jaran's office.

"Looked what up?"

"Your pain."

"And you found out that I don't have carcinoma and you're wasting your time worrying."

He shook his head. "I found out that doctors couldn't possibly get paid enough if they have to remember that much. And I want you to go in for some tests."

"No way. The first thing any human quack is going to do is a physical exam. I can't take it."

"Maybe he could knock you out first."

"Then they'll probably order a mammogram, although I'm pretty young for all that. And _that_ will hurt like hell. Then there will be more pokes and prods before they decide that I really don't have breast cancer. _If_ they don't find any thickened tissue that they decide they need to harvest with a really long needle. This has bad potential, Victor."

"I'll be right there with you."

"Whatever."

"And I want you to get a pregnancy test."

Jaran's face was a quick-changing mask of emotions. "I'm not pregnant, Victor. You don't have to worry about that."

He shrugged. "It's painless and it doesn't involve a physical exam."

"I can't get pregnant. Elves don't accidentally get pregnant. I guess our bodies understand that having an unwanted child would be a longer lasting burden-ages for a child to regret not having the love of one or both parents. So I-"

Victor's face shut down. "I got it, Jaran. You don't want my baby, so you don't think you're pregnant."

Her complete silence-something he rarely got from her-made his glance at her from under his lashes. She looked stunned.

"Do you want a baby?" she whispered.

"No," he huffed. But he pouted to her way of thinking and half-turned away from her.

Her face bloomed understanding and her hand went to her abdomen. "Jesus, Victor-"

"Drop it, Jaran. You said you didn't want a baby. I'm not up for a lecture."

In a voice as soft and sweet as dew on rose petals she asked, "When did I say that I didn't want your child?"

"I'm a monster," he shot back.

"If you've been entertaining those thoughts you could be a father. I've wanted forever out of you since practically the first time we argued."

That got him turned around fast enough. "Are you stupid?"

She shrugged. "I don't believe so." She sank down onto the couch beside him. Her face was serious as she caught his in her hands. "If we're not now-if I go to a healer and everything works out-do you want to be?"

He nodded, expression pure misery. "I want you to be well."

She dropped her mouth to his and kissed him deeply. When he responded to her she reached down for the buttons of his shirt.

"Jaran-"

"A baby, Victor. You have a goal, so concentrate..."


	16. Chapter 16

**Years later…**

"He's never really going to make peace with it, is he?" she asked.

Creed shook his head. "My brother's not what you'd call a really peaceful person."

"Why can't he see what's there?" Jaran sighed.

"What are you talking about?"

She rolled over, propping her chin on his chest. His hands combed gently through her hair, lifting it away from her head so that his claws wouldn't accidentally rake her scalp. He'd learned to be careful with her, careful with the children, so that he didn't cause any pain. She tamed something inside him, healed what couldn't be tamed. And shared a life of exile with him-she not one of his kind, he not one of hers, neither one with the world.

"Jimmy and Loden. He just doesn't see that she loves him."

"I don't think she sees it, either, to be truthful."

Jaran gently nipped at his flesh. "That's very insightful of you, Sabre," she teased. "Why don't you explain it to me?"

Victor let the tremors her mouth had caused ripple through him before he could relax his mind again. "I think she's afraid to let too much of herself go," he explained.

"Because of her husband?"

He nodded. "Losing the one you've pledged yourself to is hard. Walking away from them is bad enough, but having absolutely no control over it?" He shook his head. His voice was softer when he spoke again. "Her husband was killed in Vietnam by a soldier who went apeshit and killed his CO and half his squad."

Jaran met his eyes. "She doesn't blame you for that. There's no proof that you had anyth-"

Victor's fingertips found her lips and he touched her gently, shaking his head. "I _am_ a monster, Jaran. There's no proof. I don't recognize the name, but I didn't care about details-still don't."

"Jimmy doesn't recognize the name-"

"But he was _mind wiped_.

"Me or one of the other three thousand guys who came back a little more damaged than normal, the guy wasn't killed in action. He wasn't taken out by the enemy. He was ended by one of his own and she knows that. One of the survivors told her that. And that's what she lives with-that she had a limited amount of time with a guy she loved enough for forever and even that time was cut short. I don't blame her for kind of building up defenses."

"She's a healer. What she's done for your brother-"

"She doesn't see that she's opened up to him," Victor insisted. "She doesn't see it as different."

"Are you so certain that it is?"

He nodded. "She doesn't work with anyone else. The only time I've seen anything other than compassion was when I went to him about you. They were together and she...I don't know...I know it sounds crazy, but she was almost _human._ Like I haven't seen anyone be human in a long time."

Jaran snorted. "It's sad when the mortals have to look to the elder race to see _humanity_."

"You're a snob," he snorted on a laugh.

She nodded. "And I'm raising your children to be half-snobs. It will go along with your insufferable superiority nicely, I think."

"I can't help looking down on most of those freaks, Jaran," he said, cuddling her closer and burying his face in her neck. "They're not only creepy, they're limited in scope and imagination and full of self-pity. How much longer do you think the baby will sleep?"

"Long enough if you don't wax philosophical," she shot back.

It was the last thing either said for a while.

"We need a vacation," Victor decided during the 2 a.m. feeding.

"I'm sorry…are you the same man who suggested just hours after I'd been recruited to join ya'll's merry little band that you were above the need for R&R?" she smirked.

He shrugged. "That was pre-you."

"You don't say."

He shifted again, watching her nurse their daughter back to sleep. "I'll bet half the people here would love to babysit. We could go down to that little B&B you lust after at the bottom of the mountain."

"The bread basket, Victor. I lust after their bread basket. Mmmm."

"Just the two of us. We can wander the woods. Reconnect. A few days. Just us. Whatcha think?"

She pursed her lips and almost visibly thought it over. He watched her glance down at their child, then glance toward the door as if she could see their son asleep in his own bed through the thick stone walls.

"You really want this or is this just a whim?"

Victor shrugged. "I think you could use the break. And I love you. We haven't had a whole uninterrupted weekend since that very first weekend…"

She nodded as he took their cub from her and rocked the child the rest of the way into slumber. Jaran smiled to herself as she put herself back together. If ever a man was in love with his children it was Victor Creed. She would let him play this out…see where it led. She doubted there was anyone else he would trust with the little ones long enough for them to take the honeymoon they'd never had.

"You need to come home. Now. There's something wrong with Mychal."

There was fear in Loden's voice. Fear that echoed into Jaran. Victor picked up on it immediately.

"We have to go back," she said simply when she looked up at him.

"It's okay," he told her, reaching out for her hand. His keys were already in the other. Their bags still sat by the door. "It's only an hour."

He didn't even ask what was wrong. Whether he sensed that she didn't know or he just didn't care, he was ready to leap to action. And leap he did. The sixty-five minute drive down was turned into a flying forty minutes up.

If Victor could have parked in the foyer he would have. He had to make do with sliding into the driveway and slamming the car into park. Jaran was out of the car before him-was already on the upper stairs when he gained the grand entry.

"Where?" he growled.

"Jamychal's room-" Ana began. "Loden can't calm him down."

Victor was already tearing past, bounding up the flights of stairs.

Jaran opened the door to the nursery and found a wall of adults facing the bed in the corner. Emily was asleep on Xavier's shoulder.

"Mychal!"

Victor appeared behind her as the sea parted. His precious son was scrunched up in the corner, hissing and clawing at those closest to him.

In the form of a wolf.

The little boy saw his parents and hurtled himself toward them, changing as he did so into a sobbing toddler.

Jaran caught him, burying her face in his neck. Mychal wept against her shoulder, reaching for his Da as well. Victor enfolded them both.

"Shh, baby, what is it?" Jaran cooed in her soft undertones.

"Tell us, little one," Victor all but purred.

It was Loden who answered. "He slept late-I was afraid to let him go too long because you have him on a schedule-I know how you are about routines with them. When I woke him up he just cried and cried. I told him we could call you, but he started screaming for you. I tried to pick him up, but that's when he must have gotten really scared and he started fighting me."

Jaran noticed now the shreds of the other woman's shirt, the scratches and smears of blood.

"Oh, Loden...I'm so sorry."

"_No_. I just worried for him. I've never seen him do that before."

Victor chuckled, snuffling the little boy's neck and shoulders. "Pretty neat trick. Better than your old man," he whispered.

Jaran shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it, either." She looked at her husband. "He changed completely."

Victor nodded, taking the child's weight from her. "Don't look at me. I told you I was trouble."

Logan laughed as he came in. "I heard there was a commotion. I thought you two were going away for the weekend. Your second or third or whatever honeymoon. Can't say goodbye yet or did you miss them already?"

Victor shrugged. "We got away for a little while. We'll try again in a couple years."

"You had four whole hours, two of which were driving time," Xavier scolded.

Jaran met her husband's eyes. His were calmer, contented now that he had his son to himself.

"Victor, I'm sorry..." she began.

He shook his head. "I don't care. I was wrong. Sex isn't a problem now. It never has been. And it's not like we only have a limited amount of time. You'll still be an immortal in a couple of decades when they don't need us so much. I'll still be immortal. It'll all work out, Jaran."

People started shifting out of the room and he moved to the old wooden rocker.

"He'll have to be trained," Xavier declared. "Both of them."

Victor rolled his eyes. He tucked the quiet child onto his lap and gestured impatiently. Jaran reclaimed Emily and brought their daughter to him. With the soft growth on his cheeks and the well-dressed small children and the expensive furniture he looked like an ad for a modern department store.

Logan didn't want to let the subject drop. "Victor, he can't just-"

Victor bared his teeth. "He's only two."

"He can't be allowed to hurt people."

"He managed to nurse without maiming Jaran."

"Victor!"

Jaran interceded. "Logan, we'll deal with it. One of us will stay with him. I'm sorry about Loden's arm. And anybody else. _But pick your timing._"

Logan sighed, visibly reeling himself in. There was a sense to what she was saying. And she knew what she was talking about. He hadn't meant for his brother to drop the child immediately and start behavior modification. And Victor should have known that. He glanced over and saw his nephew gently rubbing Victor's clawed fingertips. The nails weren't weapons of destruction to the child. They were a loving father's hands. Something to toy with just as he toyed with his mother's long hair or jewelry.

"I'm sorry, Jaran," he said softly.

She shook her head. "It's all right, Logan. We'll deal with it."

He nodded, then left the room.

The woman shut the door behind him, then went to kneel at her husband's feet, smiling up at the face where the tear drops were already drying.

"I love you," she assured him.

"We know," Victor answered for his son. His grin was wide and easy. His son, quick to pick up on the emotions around him, empathized with his jackass father's humor and laughed gleefully on his knee.

His mom and da were back. He didn't know what the hell had taken them so long, but he had them back and that went a long way to restoring his good humor.


	17. Chapter 17

"Why didn't you want to name the girls something elvish-like Jamychal and Raing?"

Jaran cocked her head and shot him a quick glance. "They are," she responded.

"What?" Victor asked.

"Emily and Molly are elvish names."

He scoffed. "Molly's short for Margaret or some old-fashioned Irish name like that."

"Go _figure_," she moaned. "Where would the mortals get ideas for their names? Would it be from...no, it couldn't be from the _native_ _species_!"

"What are you telling me?" His voice was suspicious now. At least he'd caught on to the displeasure in hers.

She forgave him for being thick-headed and spoke normally. "Emily and Molly are elvish names. All 'native' Irish names usually come from Gaelic. Which is, in a simpler dialect, based on the language of the Gavalen elves."

"How many Elvish languages are there?" he asked.

"Seven that I know of. They all have common roots, but they've changed and mutated over the years."

"Ah-ha. And Emily?"

"I traded the ie for a y. It's a centuries old common name. Actually, Basic common name. An adaptation of which is found in all forms of language-even most modern human languages." She pulled over to the edge of the road and turned around in the car seat.

"Do you see the big dipper?" she asked. Victor nodded, half-turning as well. "Do you see Polaris?" At his nod she spread her fingers. "Put Polaris at your thumb. Do you see the green halo that forms around the tips of your fingers? That's Emily."

"Green glowing lights in the sky?"

When he turned to Jaran she was shaking her head. When he turned back he could see them.

"Holy shit! What does that mean? What is Emilie?"

"Enchantment. Magic. Belief that makes ideas truth. It's a special word. It's hard to explain."

"That's what you named our daughter?" he asked, turning around.

Jaran nodded proudly. "Fitting, don't you think?"

Victor nodded back at her. He was hugely impressed. And touched more than he would ever admit. He narrowed his eyes and spread his hand out in front of him.

"It has to be lined up with Polaris."

"Why? If it's an illusion our mind creates for our eyes because we believe, why is it connected to something physical?"

"I said it was magic. That doesn't mean that it's not real. And reality is bound by absolute laws."

"I think you're nuts."

"You wouldn't be the first," she whispered agreeably as she put the car back in drive.

-_...-…_-_..._-

"How absolutely certain are you that you're immortal?" Jaran asked him as they lay entwined in the soft grey light.

"Why?" he inquired with a smile. "Looking to get rid of me so soon?"

She shook her head and pursed her lips. He read into the expression that this was a serious conversation. Which he avoided ruthlessly.

"I couldn't tell you what gave me that idea," he joked. "Could be the thousands of bullets that have been flung my way. Or the fact that I'm not aging on par with my peer group-who, by the way, have mostly been dead for the last hundred and fifty years or so..."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Her eyes slid over his features, then met his again. There was no joy in her voice when she spoke. "You're starting to get some grey in your hair. Right here, at the temples."

Sabretooth held her closer, exhilarating in the feel of her long nails against his scalp while feeling the trepidation build up in his soul.

"I know. I saw it."

"I figured you did." She didn't say the rest-his eyesight was better than hers. He was the consummate predator.

"Does that bother you?"

"The color or the implications?"

"Okay," he conceded. "Both."

She shrugged. "I don't give a rip about the color. The implications-yeah, that scares me some. It changes things a little."

Victor smiled down at her. "Don't freak out just yet, okay? I'm nearly two hundred years old and I've got a couple of greys. I think my odds are pretty good." He sank back down on the bed, pulling her to his chest. "Most humans go grey around 30 or 40, right? Then they live another thirty or forty years-unless they piss somebody off." He hissed when she pinched him. "Baby, I've got at least another 30 or 40 years left. It'll be fine. The kids will be grown by then-"

Jaran put her fingertips to his lips and dropped her head to the middle of his chest. He felt her shudder, then he felt the wetness of her tears.

Sabre held her closer, rubbing a hand consolingly over her shoulder blades while the other stroked her hair. She had earned the tears. She almost never cried them. And he understood the grief. He'd finally made plans-had intentions of sticking around-and fate seemed to have decided to stomp on him.

"I'm not dying right now, Jaran," he whispered urgently. "Not for a long, long time probably, if ever. I could just be going grey. And it could take another century or so. Don't mourn me yet."

His wife looked up, stroking the whiskers that hid his cheeks. "There's a boat that the elves build," she confided, leaning up so that she could watch his eyes. For good measure she reached for his hands, matching their palms together. Victor let her. "It's made of a certain kind of wood in a very specific design. It takes us when we've grown too weary of this world."

He nodded. "I'll build you your boat," he promised. "Not right now, although we can start on it if it makes you feel better, but I'll have it ready for you long before I'm old and feeble."  
She smiled at him. "Will you come with me? After some time-after we've been able to track the progress of the aging, when we see a pattern-if we see a decline, will you go before you're someone else?"

He nodded. His face changed as she watched and he moved, bringing her up so that her hair hung around them. He was so rarely sentimental. So rarely poetic. It made the times when he was that much more poignant.

"I will always go with you, Jaran Springsong. I will use every bit of strength and determination in me to meet whatever request you make of me. And I will do it gladly, if it makes your smile whole again. Yes, I will do this with you."

He arched up, taking her mouth with his. And, palms still pressed together, felt her relief and her love echoing back and forth between them until there was no difference between what pleased him and what pleasured her. They were one-linked, joined, mated-and they would be the same forever.

-_...-…_-_..._-

**The End…**


	18. Epilogue

Victor leaned back, his chest heaving. Jaran settled over him, her long hair falling around them both. His hands, claws sheathed, came up under her hair, the thick pads of his fingertips massaging her scalp.

Jaran felt him exhale the air from his lungs, blowing out his cheeks.

"Well..."

Victor felt her lips curve into a smile against his neck.

"...I guess that's been building up." "...I guess that was a long time in coming."

Jaran laughed, delighted, as she ran her hands over his upper arms. "I _guess_. I _guess_. This is what I get from you?"

She felt him shrug beneath her. "What do you want?"

He knew what she wanted. It was why his wicked eyes were dancing as he watched her lift her head, tossing all that hair. Her eyes were narrowed as she pretended to glare at him. It only made his smile broaden.

"I want poetry! And love songs! And, and, and _besottedness_. And-"

He couldn't contain the chuckle, couldn't maintain the image of cool. "Jesus Christ," he laughed. "Besottedness? _Besottedness_? Is that even a _word_?"

His mate slapped at his chest and made to pull away from him. "It is now," she threw back. She leaned up over him, pushing out her bottom lip for maximum effectiveness. It wouldn't work. It never did. Not on _any_ of the men in her life. It hadn't on her father or her brothers growing up. Only a few of the men she'd dated found it convincing. Victor ignored it and their son didn't even notice. Still, it made her feel better for trying.

"Some women get romance. Rose petals and yellowed letters full of hopes and dreams and plans. And big daisies and boxes of chocolates and pretty, lacy lingere."

"You don't like chocolate. I bring you cookies all the time. And lingere would be wasted on us. What you're wearing under your clothes doesn't matter nearly as much to me as how fast you'll let me get you out of them. Besides, with my claws you'd constantly have to restock."

"You're missing the spirit involved here," she pretended to complain. Her pout had melted back into an easy smile.

Victor trapped her elbows and flipped her to the side. His face lost its glow of enjoyment and became very serious as he leaned down over her.

"Take this spirit then: I love you, Jaran. I am risking everything in me to love you like I love you. And I'm terrified every minute that we're apart that you're going to come to your senses. And I'm grateful every minute that we're together-whether we're naked or not-for every damn minute."

He watched her smile morph again. The easy happy grin had disappeared when he'd man-handled her. The shocked stillness gave way to a pleased, gentle parting of her lips.

"I'm not going anywhere, Sabre," she whispered. "You're mine."

Victor's mouth pressed down against hers, his eyes shutting against the intensity of his feelings.

"Do you still want to get married?" he asked mere heartbeats later.

Jaran nearly sat up. "Wha-?"

Victor loosened his grip on her. His face looked almost pained. "You said-a couple of years ago-you said that you'd always dreamed of marrying someone who would take you away and make you forget. You said that you had had your ceremony planned out since you were a little girl. You said that all little girls do long before they turn into women."

Jaran shrugged, "Victor, dreams change. You've given me three of the most beautiful, precious children on the planet. I watch you with them and I know you love them as much as I do. As much as you love me. I'm not asking for anything more from you."

He shook his head and shifted away from her, moving to sit at the edge of the bed. She followed, smoothing her palms down his suddenly tense back as he cradled his head in one of his huge, rough hands. "But if I was offering," he asked, turning to look at her. "If I was asking. Deep inside-"

Jaran met his eyes. He saw fear there. Uncertainty.

"It's okay," he whispered, palming her cheek. "I understand."

"I don't," she told him, sitting back on her heels and gathering a quilt around her. "I need you to tell me."

Victor shook his head. "Marriage is forever. You don't have to make that kind of commitment."

"To you?" she asked. "Why are we talking about this now? I thought you had issues with promises."

He shrugged.

"Does that mean you're ready to discuss the possibility of promises?"

His nod had her jaw dropping.

"_Now_?! _Now_ you want to do this?" Her hands wrapped around his throat and he laughed, dropping backward across the bed again. He let her pound at his chest while she ranted a bit. The ongoing hilarity just egged her on. "What is wrong with you? Five years! Five years we have been together! I have pulled every emotional response and utterance of affection out of your [], clenched teeth! Blood, sweat, tears, the birth of three children, God knows how many hours, how many words, and _now_ you think you're ready to actually _marry_ me? Dammit, Victor, you've been referring to yourself as my _mate_ for nearly _five years_. I'm going to kill you!"

He could barely speak for the laughter he felt at her dismay. He'd still had a moment's [betrayal] when he thought she didn't want him. She'd seen in him the instant he'd spent berating himself for being the monster he thought he was. That he was. Because he _was_. At least sometimes. But she'd eased him past that. With the absolute trust that she could whale on him and he wouldn't do anything but put up a hand if she got too rough. With the confidence she had in being able to berate him without fearing recriminations he'd been able to see what he'd _really _seen-if she was afraid it was that she would ask too much of him. If she was uncertain it was because she wanted to find an answer that he could accept without lying to him. She had reminded him of the trust he felt for her. The trust he had in what she felt for him.

"A yes or a no, Jaran!"

"Yes!" she shouted. "Yes, yes, yes!"

Victor pulled her down to him, his fingers clasping hers tightly. "You said 'yes'," he murmured against her lips.

Jaran nodded, pleased. "Yes."

"Oh, Jesus," he moaned, rolling her again so that he was above her. He needed more hands. He didn't ever want to let go. His mouth fused on hers again.

"Victor," she whispered as he moved down her neck. "The baby will be up soon."

"She'll understand someday," he assured her.

Jaran laughed. "Someday, sure. Today? She's just a baby."

"We'll hurry," he promised.

Jaran nodded, arching toward his hot mouth. She was in a hurry every time he stepped into a room. _She_ wasn't the one with something to prove.


End file.
